REL 137g 1st Edition Lecture 11 Current Lecture 4 schools of Islamic Law Hanaf Maliki Shaf i Hanbali All equally orthodox They will agree on some things disagree on others Important to distinguish between the and an a Something can be an ideal of Islamic law but is not the only one Mu tazilites Humans can know good and evil independent of revelation Otherwise God would be unjust in holding humans morally responsible Revelation is not necessary it only clarifes and confrms what right reason already fnds Brings nothing new reason is the source of all doctrines Rejected by some Ash arites Reason can serve or contradict beliefs But it is not absolute Can only make moral claims on the basis of sources that transcend human perspectives From the Koran from God Islamic law becomes as justifcatory system To justify anything one needs proof or dalil truth for every claim that is made At the heart of all negotiations in Islamic law an obsession what God will reward punish likes dislikes Not what any one person wants Proof that exists in the public domain where everyone can access and review it Kinds of proof Koran Sunna These two are the absolutely uncontested proofs Ijma Unanimous consensus Binding on the entire community Perpetual Doesn t work by focusing what is agreed upon but instead focusing on what is not agreed upon The stuff that is open for debate and discussion Qiyas Analogy Answers the question what do we do about things that scripture does not address Extend the scripture to issues that were not around at the time of revelation Four parts Known specimen example wine drinking Known ruling wine drinking is forbidden Reason why it is forbidden Unknown specimen s ruling crack cocaine in today s society Extend the reasoning ruling behind forbidden wine drinking to crack Intoxication These four kinds of proof are accepted by all the schools Disagreement on Equity istihsan Extenuating circumstances allow certain things to happen Example running stop lights in the case of an emergency Circumstances in which you can violate the law Public utility maslahah The law seeks to promote 5 things broader aims objectives Life Religion Property money Progeny family children Sanity So when something comes up that threatens these issues a law can be made up that preserves them even if it did not comes directly from revelation Example driver s license The value of life is at stake Therefore those who operate cars must be trained to do so Custom urf Another school Zahiri Rejected analogy If God did not explicitly explain why something is forbidden it cannot be extended Too inadequate Ceased to attract followers faded out of existence
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