Ibn ʿĀbidīn

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ibn ʿĀbidīn , with full name Muhammad Amīn ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn ad-Dimashqī ( Arabic محمد أمين بن عمر ابن عابدين الدمشقي, DMG Muḥammad Amīn b. ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn ad-Dimašqī ; * 1783 in Damascus ; † 1836 ) was a Muslim scholar of the Hanafi school of law. Ibn Abidin is considered to be one of the leading Islamic lawyers ( Fuqaha ) during the Ottoman period in Syria . He lived and worked from Damascus. He is considered a specialist in hanefite law.

He was awarded the title Amin al-Fatwa for the Syrian province , which means that he became one of the highest authorities in the field of legal issues. He has written over 50 books dealing with Islamic law ( fiqh ). Its best known is the Radd al-Muhtār ʿalā d-Dur al-Muchtār . It is still considered to be one of the most important references for Hanafi law today. Only the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri (“Fatawa al-Hindiyya”) commissioned by Muhammad Aurangzeb and the “ Ilau's Sunnan ” by Ashraf Ali Thanwi are considered comparable references . Ibn Abidin became a Hafiz at the age of 12 .

Views

In his office as Mufti , Abidin always emphasized that it is the task of the Mujtahid to base his judgment primarily on the Koran and Sunna . He considered the Koran, Sunnah, Ijma , Qiyas and the Ra'y (istihsan) as legal means of reaching a judgment . According to Ibn Abidin, the Ra'y was hardly applicable during his lifetime and afterwards and in earlier times was designed more as an "emergency solution". Customary law ( urf ) is only legitimate if it does not conflict with Sharia law.

Ibn Abidin did not consider the "gates of ijschtihād " to be basically closed, but to be "narrow". Reason for the "closing of the gates of ijtihad " (انسداد باب الاجتهاد, insidād bāb al-idschtihād ) was the fact that actually every ordinary Muslim can in principle issue a fatwa , which in practice can lead to constant uncertainty about legal issues, since in Sunni Islam there is no clearly defined clergy with the sole right to Has issued a fatwa , but only the relatively unclearly delimited group of legal scholars ( ulama ).

He commented similarly on the accusation of Taqlid that rigid adherence to a school of law is not obligatory (wajib), but also not wrong. As a fact, he stated that only an ʿAlim would have the opportunity to understand and practice Islamic law on their own, and for people without the necessary training it would be safer to follow a law school.

In his work al-Haschiyah (1/68) Abidin expresses himself on Taqlid:

“This is also narrated from the four imams through Imam al-Sha'rani. And it is not hidden / unclear that this means those who are qualified to analyze the evidence and who have knowledge of the unambiguous [muhkam] of the repealed [mansukh]. So if the scholars / people of a madhab analyze a piece of evidence and act accordingly, then it is correct to ascribe this to the madhab, because it was more widely disseminated through the permission of the founder of the madhab and there is no doubt that if he was of weakness would have known of his proof, he would have held back and followed the stronger evidence. "

He repeatedly emphasizes his opinion that it is the task of the scholars and not that of the ordinary people to interpret Islamic law.

He divided human actions into five categories, the so-called الأحكام الخمسة / al-aḥkām al-ḫamsa  / 'five (legal) principles':

  1. dutiful acts: (فرض farḍ orواجب wajib ) - this act is rewarded, failure to do so is punished. A distinction is made between personal duties (فرض العين farḍ al-ʿayn ), which every Muslim must obey , and communal duties (فرض الكفاية fard al-kifāya `` duty to do the job ''), in which it is sufficient if a sufficient number of Muslims participate. The first category includes e.g. B. five times daily prayer (صلاة, Koranic صلوة salad ), in the second jihad .
  2. Recommended actions: (مندوب mandūb orمستحب mustahabb orسنة sunna ) - this action is rewarded, failure to do so is not punished.
  3. permitted, indifferent actions: (مباح mubāh or halāl ) - the individual himself can decide whether to omit or carry out an act. The law does not provide for reward or punishment in this case.
  4. reprehensible, deprecated act: (مكروه makrūh ) - they are actions that the law does not punish, but whose omission is praised.
  5. Prohibited act: (حرام haraam ) - the perpetrator is punished, those who fail to do so are praised.

(See: Fard )

He affirmed that customary law can also justify a death sentence in connection with Sharia law, applied in the Ottoman Empire for example. B. at the execution of the Sufi scholar Sheikh Bedreddin . The fatwa for the legitimate killing of Shiites and Alevis of Ibn-i Kemal , which he prepared in the reign of Selim I , in the context of the persecution of Alevis in the Ottoman Empire , he considered legitimate, as was the execution of Pir Sultan Abdal .

He considered praying with and behind another law school devotee to be appropriate and permitted, in Radd al-Muhtar alaa al-Dur al-Mukhtar, 2: 415f , he wrote: “The side on which the heart bends is the following, as long as no omission The observance of the Fard is evident, there is no reluctance to follow any other school of law. Because the Prophet's Companions (Sahaba) and those who followed (Tabi'un) prayed behind an Imam, even if he had different opinions (regarding the ijtihad ). "

pragmatism

Ibn Abidin was considered a pragmatist . He stated that customary law changes over time and that lawyers have to adapt to them. As long as no law clearly violates Sharia law, it cannot simply be classified as prohibited or censured.

In his opinion, lawyers should not strictly and rigidly observe the observance of existing customary law, but should also focus their attention on the needs of the people of their time, so that the "benefit" always outweighs the "harm". He also considered the rigid adherence to customary legal school thinking to be inappropriate, so he stated that customary law at the time of Abu Hanifa already differed in parts from that of Abū Yūsuf and al-Shaibānī .

Criticism of the Ottoman state

Although many scholars at the end of the Ottoman Empire kept themselves covered with criticism for fear of sanctions, this was partly voiced.

In a fatwa that ibn Abidin had prepared on taxes, he criticized the current tax system of the empire in a note at the end:

But most of the extraordinary taxes that are being imposed on the villages and towns these days are not for the preservation of the state, but are mere means of oppression and aggression, most of the expenses the governor and his subordinates make for their own buildings, Residences and residences of their soldiers and pay the messengers of the Sultan [...]

Individual evidence

  1. Gerber (1999), 44
  2. Gerber (1999), 102
  3. Ignaz Goldziher, op. Cit. 66-70; M. Muranyi: Fiqh. In: Helmut Gätje (Ed.): Outline of Arabic Philology. Vol. II: Literary Studies. Wiesbaden 1987. pp. 298-299
  4. Gerber (1999), 186.
  5. Gerber (1999), 126
  6. Gerber (1999), 66