Approaching Ijmāʿ: Sociological, Theological and Legal Dimensions of Consensus in Islam
Abstract
Presenting the emergence and development of ijmāʿ, this paper aims to epistemologically critique the articulation of ijmāʿ in modern Western scholarship on Islam. The article argues that to understand ijmāʿ, we need to explore its social context, theological foundations, and practical consequences. A tolerance of the difficulty in identifying truth, an understanding of the law as being built on uncertainty, and employing jamʿ, as an assemblage are essential dynamics in the formation of the law and Muslim societies. The corpus of classical literature on ijmāʿ is expectedly contradictory, and full of gaps. Rather than seeing this as problematic, the article recognizes it as normative. Against the argument that ijmāʿ was the “foundation of foundations,” or that it was a well-defined concept that gained political power against adversaries, the article argues that in practice ijmāʿ remained marginal, and confined to the minimum necessary for each individual to be a member in the Muslim community.
Downloads
References
al-Āmidī, ‘Alī bin Muḥammad. Al-Ihkām fī Uṣūl al-Ahkām. Riyad: Dār al-Ṣumīʿī, 2003.
Al-ʿAṭṭār, Ḥasan. Ḥāshīyat al-ʿAṭṭār ʿala Jamʿ al-Jawāmiʿ. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-’Ilmiyah, n.d.
ʿAbd al-Rāziq, ʿAlī. Al-Ijmāʿ fī al-Sharīʿa al-Islmīya. Cairo, Egypt: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 1947.
Al-Nīsābūrī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Mundhir. Al-Ijmāʿ. ʿAjmān: Maktabat al-Furqān, 1999.
Al-Qarāfī, Aḥmad. Tanqīḥ al-Fuṣūl fī Ikhtiṣār al-Maḥṣūl fī al-Uṣūl. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2004.
Al-Raysūnī, Al-Raysūnī. Naẓariyyat al-Taqrīb wa al-Taghlīb wa Taṭbīqātuhā fī al-ʿUlūm al-Siyāsiyyah. Al-Manṣūrah, Egypt: Dār al-Kalimah, 2010.
Al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad ibn Idrīs. Al-Risālah. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, n.d.
Al-Zarkashī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Bahādir. Al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh. Kuwait: Wizārit al-Awqāf wa al-Shūʾūn al-Islāmīyah bi-al-Kūwait, 1988.
Bravmann, M.M. The Spiritual Background of Early Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972.
al-Ghazālī, Abu Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. Al-Mankhūl fī Taʿlīqāt al-Usūl. Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1980.
al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. Al-Mustashfā min ’Ilm al-Uṣūl. Edited by Muḥammad ‘Abdus Salām al-Shāfi. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub ‘Ilmiyyah, 1993.
al-Ghazālī, Abu Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. Miʿyār al-ʿIlm fī Fann al-Manṭiq. Cairo, Egypt: Al-Maṭbaʿah al-ʿArabiyyah, 1927.
Goldziher, Ignaz. Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Hallaq, Wael B. “On the Authoritativeness of Sunni Consensus.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, no. 4 (1986): 427–454.
———. The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Hourani, George F. “The Basis of Authority of Consensus in Sunnite Islam.” Studia Islamica, no. 21 (1964): 13–60.
ʿImāra, Muḥammad. Al-Islām wa Falsafat al-Ḥukm. Cairo, Egypt: Dār al-Shurūq, 1989.
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr. Iʿlām al-Mūwaqiʿīn ʿAn Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn. Cairo, Egypt: Maktabat al-Kulliyāt al-Azhariyya, 1968.
Kabbī, Zuhayr Shafīq. Al-Ijmāʿ. Beirut: Dār al-Muntakhab al-ʿArabī, 1993.
Mohamed, Mohamed Mosaad Abdelaziz. “The Linguistic and Sociological Dimensions of the Concept of Jamʿ: A Deleuzian Approach.” Islamology, no. 2 (2020).
Schacht, Joseph. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959.
al-Shāṭibī, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā al-Gharnatī. Al-Muwāfaqāt fī Uṣūl al-Sharīʿah. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2004.
Stewart, Devin J. Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1998.
Copyright (c) 2020 Ulumuna
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
