Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Every educated Muslim should read at least introductory texts on important facets of Islamic Tradition written by scholars capable of critical thinking.   The tragedy of the Muslim world consists, generally speaking, in refusal to think and reflect and outsourcing these tasks to those who haven’t been trained to review the state of art of different disciplines and master the art of thinking and conceptual apparatus required at the highest level. At certain level and on more general problems, all Muslims are required to know basics and think over them. In the name of Islam it has been the case that on certain issues one could be misled, misinformed and needlessly opinionated and judgmental. Self esteem, relationships/family life, job prospects, respect for reason, authority of conscience, faith in God/Islam all have been negatively impacted due to misconstrued views one has interiorized. Every educated Muslim should read at least introductory texts/review articles on important f...

Imagine a conference on fiqh today in which the likes of Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi, Ghazzali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Marghinani , Imam Shatibi and Shah Waliullah are invited.   The fundamental orientation of Shariah given to the Prophet (SAW) – “Mercy for the Worlds” – is ease and mercy. If we fail to find this there is something wrong either with particular interpretations supposed to encapsulate the view of Islam or our own understanding of what is our real good or our state of health due to slavery of desire. Let us first explore this almost marginalized aspect of Islamic law stated succinctly by Ibn al-Qayyim: “The Islamic law is all about wisdom and achieving people’s welfare in this life and the afterlife. It is all about justice, mercy, wisdom, and good. Thus, any ruling that replaces justice with injustice, mercy with its opposite, common good with mischief, or wisdom with nonsense, is a ruling that does not belong to the Islamic law, even if it is claimed to be...

Choosing between Diverse Options in Fiqh. Is our fate in the otherworld linked to following particular juristic school in a given case? Is animal sacrifice ( qurbani ) mandatory for every individual who can afford it ( sahibi Istita'at )? Is the popular understanding of qurbani (especially Hanafi one) based on certain reading of prophetic traditions uncontested in Islamic tradition?  No is the answer to all these questions. Let us explore why. And our inquiry would be relevant to other important issues that often divide us, declare us guilty or cause us to take positions that we are not sure, at some level, we should be identifying with.       It seems that more careful attention to underlying motivations or rationale of what is called Islamic law (more appropriately, human understanding of Revealed Law, Fiqh) would help all Muslims, irrespective of theological or juristic affiliations including reformists/modernists and their traditionalist critics, to...