Authors:Muhammad Zahid Siddique First page: 9 Abstract: The issue of causality remained one of the heatedly debated issues in the early centuries of Islam. The fundamental question faced by Muslim theologians was whether cause and effect havea self-sustained relationship or each event in the universe is continuously governed by the Will of God' If the former is the case, then how are miracles possible' If latter, why do we observe regularity in events' The impossibility of miracles could not be accommodated by Muslim theologians because miraclesareregarded as one of the primary means of establishing the truth of prophethood. This article explains the critique levelled by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī in his famous book Tahāfut al Falāsifah on the position of Muslim philosophers about causality. Al-Ghazālī’s primary concern was to show that the cause-and-effect relationship is neither necessary nor sufficient; what we call “cause-and-effect relationship” is an opinion based on the observation of one event happening after the other. In his opinion, we never observe “cause,” rather we only observe two events. In recent past, some Muslim thinkers have accused al-Ghazālī of diverting Muslims away from scientific endeavour by criticising the principle of causality. Others confused al-Ghazālī’s critique of causality with David Hume’sposition. The article attemptsto bring forth the flaws behind these views. PubDate: 2021-09-30 DOI: 10.52541/fn.v59i1.2003 Issue No:Vol. 59, No. 1 (2021)
Authors:Muhammad Abubakar Siddique First page: 51 Abstract: The sharī‘ah invalidates the sale of non-existing items, but salam sale was exceptionally permitted to avoid interest-based financing in commercial as well as non-commercial transactions. Salam sale is an Islamic forward sale contract, which authorizes selling something that is not present during the time of the contract. Salam is a sale agreement whereby the seller receives full price in advance and goods are delivered at a future date. Moreover, it is free from uncertainties and exploitation that is usually involved in interest-based financing. Besides the agriculture sector, currently, this instrument is also being used in the manufacturing sector where the manufacturer would need financing to produce products and/or to buy raw materials. Modern financial innovations introduced different uses of salam sale such as parallel salam, currency salam, salam sukūk etc. There are different fiqh issues related to such uses of salam in modern financial sectors. This article elaborates on the economic importance and conditions that are necessary and sufficient to makethe contract valid from the perspective of the sharī‘ahand also appraises some of the key issues related to modern practices regarding salam. PubDate: 2021-12-17 DOI: 10.52541/fn.v59i1.1224 Issue No:Vol. 59, No. 1 (2021)
Authors:Muhammad Amir Gazdar First page: 111 Abstract: Jāvaid Aḥmad Ghāmidī, a contemporary Muslim modernist scholar, holds that the three established rituals of ḥajj and ‘umrah can be regarded as independent rituals in religion, which he categorises asnadhar (votive offering). The ritual is performed by fulfilling three conditions: 1) abstaining from removing body hair, 2) refraining from clipping nails, and 3) trimming or shaving the head. According to Ghāmidī, all believers can perform this rite, without any spatio-temporal restriction, as a supererogatory act. The Prophet (P.B.U.H.), he believes, encouraged Muslims to voluntarily observe it on the occasion of ‘īd al-aḍḥā. This is inferred by combining the information found in two Prophetic narrations, one reported by Umm Salamah and the other by ‘Abd Allah b. ‘āmr. In Ghāmidī’s view, all believers whether or not they are offering the animal sacrifice may offer such nadhar. For doing so, they would follow the two aforestated restrictions from the beginning of Dhū al-Ḥijjah (the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar) and trim or shave their heads on the ‘Īd day after the animal has been slaughtered (if they are to offer the sacrifice) orin anytime during the day (if they are not to offer the sacrifice). This last act is seen as a token of the completion of their votive offering to God. After a careful discussion of Ghāmidī’s view, this article concludes that the religious and rational arguments put forward by Ghāmidī are insufficient to relate the three rites (separately mentioned in the above Prophetic narrations) to the corresponding rites of ḥajj and ‘umrah and generalize them, out of the context, as one standalone ritual. PubDate: 2021-09-30 DOI: 10.52541/fn.v59i1.1493 Issue No:Vol. 59, No. 1 (2021)
Authors:Muhammmad Rafeeq Shinwari First page: 159 Abstract: The Ḥanafī legal theory is characterized by the fact that unlike other Islamic legal theories it has been extracted from the Ḥanafī fiqh developed by its founding jurists. Later, the Ḥanafī fiqh seems to have gradually split down into trends; one representing the jurists/theorists of ‘Irāq and the other representing those of Mā Warā’ al-Nahr/Samarqand. Both of these trends have left a great impact on the Ḥanafī legal theory. The paper aims to look over this bifurcation and trace its origins to the Ḥanafī fiqh itself. For this purpose, it analyses the works of pioneering Ḥanafī theorists such as Abū Bakr al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Abū Zayd al-Dabūsī, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bazdawī, and Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Sarakhsī in chronological order. The paper finds that al-Jaṣṣāṣ is the pioneer in terms of the development of the Ḥanafī legal theory; al-Dabūsī’s work is characterized by introducing new terminologies; and the works of al-Bazdawī and al-Sarakhsī are useful for arriving at the conclusive stance of the Ḥanafī legal theory. Though the latter two theorists belonged to Mā Warā’ al-Nahr, their preference in some occasions for the views of ‘Irāqī theorists indicate that they did not engage as communal competitors; rather, they played their roles as referees by relying greatly on Ḥanafī fiqh while developing Ḥanafī legal theory. They made robust efforts for tracing the origin of a Ḥanafī theoretical viewpoint to Ḥanaf┘ substantive law or furū‘. This is how they successfully showed the coherency and consistency in Ḥanafī fiqh and uṣūl. This paper specially focuses on al-Sarakhsī’s Uṣūl in which he critically examined the views of his predecessors from Mā Warā’ al-Nahr r on certain issues. PubDate: 2021-12-17 DOI: 10.52541/fn.v59i1.1055 Issue No:Vol. 59, No. 1 (2021)
Authors:Muhammad Ans Hassan First page: 215 Abstract: Shāh ‘Abd al-‘Azīz was the son of an illustrious Muslim scholar of the Indian Subcontinent, Shāh Walī Allah. Like his father, he was greatly interested in Qur’ānic Studies and wrote a commentary on the Qur’ān in Persian titled Fatḥ al-‘Azīz. This commentary, however, is not found in its complete form anywhere. Only the commentary on 184 verses (ayāt) of the second chapter, al-Baqarah and on the last two parts (ajzā’) of the Qur’ān is published in two volumes. It is commonly thought that the commentary had remained incomplete and only the parts that have been published were penned down. There are, however, certain clues to the possibility that Shāh ‘Abd al-‘Azīz might have completed the commentary but most of it was lost. This article appraises the views about the completion or non-completion of this commentary and assesses the evidence of each side. PubDate: 2021-09-30 DOI: 10.52541/fn.v59i1.1730 Issue No:Vol. 59, No. 1 (2021)
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