The Foundations Of Islamic Society Are Laid Down and the World Is Changed Forever
The foundations of Islamic Society, which would shape the Islamic world for the next 1400 years, were laid down in the field of Law developed by Muslim’s called Maqasid al Shariah, or the Objectives of Shariah. To appreciate the significance of this we have to picture the world as it was in the year 800AD when this occurred, societies were mostly tribal, pagan and the world empires ruled through force. Europe as we know it was almost non existent and America would not be discovered for another 600 years.
The foundation of society are it’s Laws they not only state how the people of that society will be treated but they also indicate the intellectual state of that society because law shows what that society was capable of understanding about humanity and upholding as values.
For example Europe was in the Dark Ages almost entirely because of it’s Laws, which ordained things like innocence or guilt is decided through superstition and torture, this was famously known as it’s trial by ordeal system, their laws stopped science and development altogether branding them as witchcraft spiralling the entire region into an Abyss it could not take itself out from, contrast this with what the Quran almost commanded about investigating nature and the Universe.
People back then were not in a state to see the world as we do today because they were not capable of perceiving liberty, freedom and human rights as we do, Islam changed all that for the entire world and very literally was responsible for shaping the world into what we see it today because of the developments it made to Law. Islamic scholars discovered, outlined and developed the very ideas of liberty and freedom we often quote, what allowed them to even perceive these ideas in the backdrop that existed around world was the islamic communities striving to achieve Ihsan, Human perfection, as muslims began to study the self and understand it more intricately this impacted on other areas of life such as Law and hence ideas of human perfection led to developments in Law that would help man create a society that could achieve this.
The “Objectives Of Shariah” gave Islamic society direction and something to achieve with it’s system of Law, hence the wisdom behind rulings were investigated and outlined under this legal science.
Scholars began to ask what were the objectives of Islamic Law, some Muslim scholars of jurisprudence, said that Allah revealed such a legislative system or Shari’ah in order to achieve Justice. Other jurists said it is for the purpose of achieving happiness and some others such as Imam al- Ghazali, said it is only for the achievement and realization of man’s benefit on earth.
In the field of Law which governed the Islamic Khalifah, Muslim scholars from the first days of Islam (700AD) developed entire sciences and tools to help the Muslim Ummah govern it’s people, in fact the modern Dictionary was largely invented to help preserve the Arabic language of the Qur’an, it was then adopted by other nations around the world for the task of preserving their languages.
Dictionaries hold the definition of a word at the time it was written and spoken, since language changes over time it becomes important to know what previous generations understood by the words they used in order to understand texts over a 1000 years old, prior to Islam this was not a practice among other civilisations, the preservation and understanding of language is important to the intellectual life of any society.
“Biographical dictionaries are also a characteristic feature of Muslim historical literature. The dictionaries were compiled according to professions, towns or regions, centuries or epochs, etc. Equally great importance was given to genealogical tables, particularly amongst the Arabs; and the relationship of hundreds of thousands of persons of some importance, thus learnt, facilitates the task of the researcher who should desire to penetrate the underlying causes of events”.
“The written-constitution of the State is also an innovation of the Muslims. In fact, Prophet Muhammad (saws) was its author. When he established a City-State at Madinah, he endowed it with a written constitution, which document has come down to us, thanks to Ibn Hisham and Abu ‘Ubaid, and its contents could be divided into 52 clauses. It mentions in precise terms the rights and obligations of the head of the State, of constituent units (within society), and of subjects respectively, in matters of administration, legislation, justice, defence, etc. It dates from the year 622 AD.”
“In its comprehensive character, legal science developed among Muslims very early. They were the first in the world to entertain the thought of an abstract science of law (discussing the theories of Law), distinct from the codes of the general laws of the country. The ancients had their laws, more or less developed and even codified, yet a science which should treat the philosophy and sources of law, and the method of legislation, interpretation, application, etc., of the law was wanting, and this never struck the minds of the jurists before Islam. Since the second century of the Hijrah (800 C.E.) there began to be produced Islamic works of this kind, called Usul al-Fiqh (Principles of Law)”.
We take many things for granted today, by comparison European law prior to 1600 CE considered that a person was guilty when accused of a crime until they could prove their own innocence, later when this law was changed and they adopted a more Islamic approach their entire society changed with it. The modern legal maxim that “a person is Innocent until proven guilty” also known as the presumption of innocence, was derived from verses in the Qur’an (623AD) like;
“Why did they not bring four witnesses of it? But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah.”(24:13)
“If any of your women are guilty of lewdness (al-fahishata), Take the evidence of four (Reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them (4:15-16).
These verses set a standard for establishing guilt and asked that anyone accused of a crime, his accuser should prove his guilt first, with reliable witnesses before punishment, in European law until nearly the modern age any man or women who was accused of a crime had to prove their own innocence to be acquitted of the crime.
Because the burden to prove innocence was placed on the person being accused and not the person making the accusation this lead to a lot of corruption and false testimony, and almost the total dysfunction of that society until the enlightenment, the period when they adopted everything Islamic, although it should be noted they did not like to reveal the sources of their inspiration because Europe had declared multiple crusades against Muslims, most often translators of Islamic books would latinise the names of scholars so they were not recognisable.
Allah changed who the burden of proof was upon, when he said “But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah”. This single point was considered the foundation and basis of modern society and the very thing that allowed Justice to prevail.
The Presumption of innocence can be found in Roman law and indirectly the bible, but Europe did not embrace them from these sources because they did no work to develop upon them, the bible was revealed in Roman times but it was not stated in terms they understood as a legal injunctions. Europe did not look at its sacred text in the same abstract manner as Islamic scholars did, developing and searching for legal theories or Maxims (principles).
The Qur’an on the other hand was carefully studied and analysed in every aspect for well over a thousand years, this way of thinking developed in the islamic world not long after the death of the Prophet (saws), and within 300 years Islam had Four schools of legal thought that governed muslim life in all Islamic Lands, many other minor schools around the world existed but did not survive to our time.
“In the days of antiquity, International Law was neither international nor law. It formed a part of politics and depended on the discretion and mercy of statesmen. Moreover, its rules applied only to a limited number of States inhabited by peoples of the same race, who followed the same religion and spoke the same language. The Muslims were the first to accord it a place in the legal system, creating both rights and obligations. This may be observed in the rules of international law that formed part of a special chapter in the codes and treatises of the Muslim law ever since the earliest times. In fact the most ancient treatise which we possess is the Majmu’ of Zaid ibn ‘Ali, who died in 120 H/737 C.E. That work also contains the chapter in question. Further, the Muslims developed this branch of study as an independent science, and monographs on the subject, under the generic title of Siyar, were found existing even before the middle of the second century of the Hijrah. In his Tawali at-Ta ‘sis, Ibn Hajar relates that the first monograph of the kind hailed from the pen of Abu Hanifah, the contemporary of the above-mentioned Zaid Ibn ‘Ali. The characteristic feature of this international law is, that it makes no discrimination among foreigners. It does not concern inter-Muslim relations, but deals solely with the non-Muslim States of the entire world. Islam in principle forms one single unit and one single organic community.”
The Prophet once made a dua, “O Allah! Guide Quraysh, for the science of the scholar that will come from them will encompass the earth. O Allah! You have let the first of them taste bitterness, so let the latter of them taste reward.”, the Scholars agreed that this was referring to Imam al Shafii whose work al Risala first defined the legal science of Usul al Fiqh (Principles of Jurisprudence), which today is at the heart of all law on earth, the entire Ummah utilised and benefited from the work which systemised Law itself for the other schools of thought that emulated it’s structure.
The Prophet also said: “Truly, Allah shall send forth for this Community, at the onset of every hundred years, someone who will renew their Religion for them.” The scholars agreed, among them Abu Qilaba (d. 276) and Imam Ahmad, that the first narration above signified al-Shafi`i, and the second signified `Umar ibn `Abd al-`Aziz as the first person Allah sent for the Ummah and then Imam al-Shafi`i after him as the second.
Imam Abu Hanifa (d.150) the founder of the Hanafi Madhhab (legal school) which today over 40% of muslims follow, was the first in Islam to organize fiqh under sub-headings categorizing, organizing and embracing the whole of the Law, beginning with purity (tahara) followed by prayer (sala), an order which was retained by all subsequent scholars such as Imam Malik, Shafi`i, Abu Dawud, Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, and others.
Abu Hurairah (ra) narrated Allah’s Messenger (saw) as saying:”If the Religion were at the Pleiades, even then a person from Persia would have taken hold of it, or one amongst the Persian descent would surely have found it.” Abu Hurairah (ra) also narrates:”We were sitting in the company of Allah’s Apostle (saw) when Surat al-Jum`a was revealed to him and when he recited amongst them, (those who were sitting with the prophet) said `Allah’s Messenger?’ but Allah’s Apostle (saw) made no reply, until he was questioned once, twice or thrice, and there was amongst us Salman the Persian. Allah’s Apostle (saw) placed his hand on Salman and then said:”Even if faith were near the Pleiades, a man from amongst these would surely find it.”
Imam as-Suyuti remarked:”It has been communicated unanimously that this hadith refers to Imam Abu Hanifah (who was a Persian).”
Al-Hafiz al-Kabir Abu Bakr Ahmad al-Harizmi wrote in his book “Musnad”: “Saif al-Aimma’ reports that when Imam Abu Hanifah derived a matter from the Qur’an and Hadith, he would not give the answer to the inquirer unless all of them
This consultation (Shurah) set the standard of investigation for latter scholars, the Imam ensured he had specialists in each field of knowledge present when deciding upon a ruling so a wide number of views could be heard from different perspectives. The Imams madhhab spread around the Muslim world in his own lifetime and He was considered among the most knowledgable people on Earth.
The Prophet said: “Very soon will people beat the flanks of camels in search of knowledge, and they shall find no-one more knowledgeable than the knowledgeable scholar of Madina.” Al-Tirmidhi, al-Qadi `Iyad, Dhahabi and others relate from Sufyan ibn `Uyayna, `Abd al-Razzaq, Ibn Mahdi, Ibn Ma`in, Dhu’ayb ibn `Imama, Ibn al-Madini, and others that they considered that scholar to be Imam Malik ibn Anas.
Imam Malik, the founder of another of Islam’s schools of law (Madhab), was responsible for preserving the Sunnah of Madina (life style of the prophet (saws) and the society he founded) for latter generations, this was the way of life of the people of Madina shortly after the prophets (saws) death, it gave the clearest picture of life in those times we have today and the Imam and his madhhab are famous for taking the actions of the people of Madina as a source of legislation in Islamic law because it was the prophet (saws) himself who established that community.
Each of the founders of Islam’s schools of Law was mentioned in Ahadith, and each had a significant impact on Islamic society throughout history.
