An Islamic Discursive Tradition on Reform as Seen in the Writing of Deoband's Mufti Muhammad Taqi...

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An Islamic Discursive Tradition on Reform as Seen in the Writing of Deoband’s Muft

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Kelly Pemberton

The George Washington UniversityWashington, D.C.

The Landscape of Religious Reform: Continuity and Change

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he work of Muft

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, who has served on both the

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Appellate Branch of Pakistan’s Supreme Court (1982–2002) and the Federal

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Court of Pakistan (1980–82), sits at a nexus of transformations within contemporary discursive traditions of reform (

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) in Islam. The question of reforming Islam — and in particular Islamic

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law — has shaped public discourses among Muslim intellectuals, scholars, religious leaders, and political authorities since the 19

th

century. In the late decades of that era, the terms secularist, modernist, and traditionalist gained currency as descriptors of the major rival groups seeking to articulate Islam on the stage of public opinion. Yet then, as today, these terms often mislead more than they enlighten, especially insofar as they ignore the common ground on which members of each group stand.

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Perhaps more so within the past four decades, political, socio-economic, and technological developments have significantly altered the landscape of religious authority in Muslim societies, and expanded the ranks of those claiming to represent Islam. Notably, these developments include the involvement of state actors in Islamization programs (even ostensibly “secular” states) and their concomitant

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sponsorship and co-optation (or curbing) of

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education; the spread of radical Islamist ideologies and the expansion of groups that uphold them; and the emergence of Muslim civic groups.

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They also encompass the migration of Muslims from “emerging market” nations (e.g. Pakistan, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Morocco, and Turkey) to more prosperous regions in the West (Western Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia), the Middle East (the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait), and Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei); and reflect the emergence of what Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori have called the “new religious intellectuals” from state or secular educational institutions.

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In the case of Pakistan, these developments have underscored the ways in which religious authorities, and consequently movements for reform, have engaged in an ongoing process of reconstruction, altering both the meanings, and the symbolic capital of the

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. Within this process, Muft

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ni stands as a member of the growing numbers of influential ‘Ulama’ who have emerged from the South Asian Subcontinent as major players on the global stage of opinion articulating the practical application of Islamic Shari “a in contemporary Muslim (and even non-Muslim) societies. Born in Deoband, India, his family migrated to Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. Educated at the Dar ul-‘Ulum Karachi, one of the oldest and most prominent Deobandi schools in Pakistan, Mufti ‘Urmani is heir to the traditions of the Deoband madrasa, with its dual emphasis on Hanafi legalism and Sufism. Among many Deobandi scholars, Sufism (tasawwuf ) is understood to be an integral part of the ethical and moral development of the individual and a tool that both “completes” the education of the jurist and renders his capacity for discerning the Law more effective and sound, and this predilection is pronounced in Mufti ‘Urmani’s voluminous writings and recorded speeches on a number of topics, particularly fiqh (Islamic law). He is considered one of the most influential jurists and scholars of Islamic law to have emerged in recent decades, and a major figure in the world of Islamic finance, in part through his work as the powerful chair of the board of Islamic scholars at the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, and in part through his work as Chairman of the Shari “a Board Dow Jones Islamic Market Index, aside from his advisory positions in a number of other financial institutions pursuing Islamic banking and finance. Though respected and sought out worldwide, Mufti ‘Urmani is not without controversy. In particular, his recent criticisms of a number of popular Islamic bonds as being contrary to Shari “a have sent alarm signals to financial institutions who are heavily invested in these securities,6 and his support for the Hudud Ordinances of Pakistan7 has drawn sharp criticism from women’s rights and democracy advocates, in particular. Even so, his work

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on contemporary Islamic fiqh and jurisprudence, of which a small selection will be considered here, is instructive for understanding how the landscape of religious authority, and authorities, is evolving in ways that are often overlooked by their detractors.

Mufti {Ußmani as representative of classical Islamic jurisprudence

Mufti ‘Urmani’s work on Islamic jurisprudence exemplifies the complexities and contradictions inherent among the ‘Ulama’ today. Within these ranks, the Deobandis are particularly instructive, both for the ways in which they have come to symbolize, for some, trenchant, anti-modernizing tendencies within Islam, and for others, the vital and progressive changes that have been taking place in the articulation of Islam on the global stage. Prevailing portraits of Deobandis have rarely characterized them as responsive to contemporary challenges for Islam to “modernize,” and indeed, many of them have vehemently resisted state efforts to alter the curricula of madrasa institutions.8 Two contrasting portraits have emerged: one, represented by contemporary international political discourse, sees the Deoband movement and its affiliated institutions — most notably the madrasa — as political, working ultimately to establish an Islamic state governed by Shari “a law, while another, represented by what may be called the “interiorization” thesis, sees movements like Deoband as largely quiescent, concerned more with the perfection of the faith and moral development of ordinary, individual Muslims (and concomitant denunciation of what is seen as un-Islamic), and less with the establishment or assertion of an Islamic political agenda.9

This study seeks to complicate such views by examining a select body of Mufti ‘Urmani’s work that demonstrates two key tensions emerging as critical debates among Islamic religious scholars (both traditional and “new religious intellectuals”) today. The tensions are between the idea of a “universal” Islam guided by the principles of Shari “a, and the particularities of Hanafi jurisprudence in contemporary Pakistan, on one hand, and between ‘Urmani’s own apparently contradictory uses of taqlid (imitation of precedent) and ijtihad (independent reasoning), on the other. As I will argue, these tensions reflect more than ideological fault lines among religious scholars competing for resources; they underscore the strategic deployment of symbolic language and index social relations, in particular the dynamics between different groups of religious authorities in contemporary Pakistan. Perhaps more important, they carry broader implications for a recasting of the ‘Ulama’ in Islam today, one that envisions them as part of an ongoing, dynamic construction of religious authority. As Muhammad Qasim Zaman’s critical and insightful work on contemporary ‘Ulama’ has argued, the multiple, often

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rancorous, and sometimes contradictory, discourses of ‘Ulama’ today must not be seen merely as evidence of incoherence or manipulation; rather, they suggest,

a far more flexible understanding of the world, and of Islam, than is often acknowledged — and not just by observers or critics of the ‘Ulama’, but often also by themselves. They have continued to accommodate changes, both small and large, and, in this respect, the ‘Ulama’ of the twentieth or the twenty-first century are not very different from those of the earlier centuries. This flexibility means that the new and the old can subsist together in the religious tradition, even as the old is reconfigured in often novel ways. It also means that, far from having been marginalized in the face of challenges to their authority — challenges from the modern nation-state or from Islamist activists and the new religious intellectuals, for instance — the ‘Ulama’ have often continued to be, or have become, active and important players in many contemporary Muslim societies.10

Zaman’s characterization of Mufti ‘Urmani likewise highlights the ambivalence with which the ‘Ulama’ view their role in the articulation of Islam on the world stage. He is at once concerned with the faith and education of Muslims everywhere, as his ample writing and lectures on matters of faith and spiritual improvement profess. Yet his many works on how the state should implement Islamic Shari “a law in Pakistan, his critique of Islamists like Maulana Abu’l A’la Mawdudi, his condemnation of the Ahmadis in Pakistan, and his active membership in a number of Islamic finance organizations in South Asia and the Middle East that work to implement an Islamic economy suggests that his activities span the spectrum from the apolitical to the implicitly political to the overtly political.11

Mufti ‘Urmani describes himself as a “traditionalist” scholar of Islam (“alim) whose methodology is firmly rooted in the classical Islamic jurisprudential tradition, and yet he is an active supporter of taqlid (usually understood to be an imitation of the examples provided by Sunni jurisprudents up to the 4th/10th century). Some clarification is needed here. In works of contemporary scholarship, the classical Islamic jurisprudential tradition commonly refers to the era in which the methodology of usul al-fiqh, the basic framework by which Muslim jurists proposed the articulation of Islamic Shari “a law, was developed. Temporally, it falls during the early ‘Abbasid period (2–4th/8th–10th centuries). This period is typically characterized as one of intense scholarly debate and intellectual foment, when the principles of Islamic law were being worked out and ijtihad was more widely accepted as a methodological tool for extracting the law from the Qur’an and Hadith. It is less often acknowledged by contemporary scholars that the ‘Ulama’ of the 4th/10th



century actively promoted taqlid.12 As the Zahiri jurist and theologian and jurist Ibn Hazm (d. 1064) noted, the Successors (Tabi“un) — those Muslims who followed the Prophet Muhammad’s generation — frequently practiced taqlid, in part as a matter of course, and in part because of regional preferences for the legal opinions ( fatawa) of local Companions of the Prophet (Sahaba) such as Ibn ‘Umar (Medina), Ibn Mas‘ud (Kufa), and Ibn ‘Abbas (Mecca). Similarly, the Jurists (Fuqaha’) who followed the Successors (including Abu Hanifa and Malik ibn Anas, founders and eponyms of the Hanafi and Maliki schools of law) practiced taqlid in those areas of the law in which opinions had already been formulated by the Successors, and exercised ijtihad where no information had been transmitted locally.13 Yet the preference for taqlid in and subsequent to the 10th century is sometimes read as the attempt by founders of the law schools (madhahib) to stem the tide of controversies over matters of faith and practice, and in so doing also promote the survival of their own schools of thought, while others have argued that everything that could be said about the methods and principles of interpreting Islam had been said by then.14 Yet another often overlooked aspect of these developments is that within the higher ranks of jurists (specialists, not laymen), it was possible, and indeed common, to practice a mixture of taqlid and ijtihad well after the establishment of the major law schools, as Wael B. Hallaq has convincingly demonstrated.15

As an advocate of the privileged role of the classically-trained jurist ( faqih)16 in the process of intellectual and legal reform, Mufti ‘Urmani’s to revive the classical Islamic jurisprudential sciences stand in opposition to the efforts of a) those “Salafis,” “Wahhabis,” and like-minded “lay” Islamist thinkers who advocate an abandonment of the classical structures of Islamic law and a return to the foundational sources of Islam (believing that each person is endowed with the capability, and right, to interpret and extract rules from these sources), b) “modernists” such as the Syrian intellectual Rashid Rida, his mentor, the Egyptian jurist Muhammad ‘Abduh, and the noted Pakistani scholar Fazlur Rahman, none of whom advise total rejection of these classical structures, but who do advocate the liberal use of ijtihad, or independent reasoning, for the purpose of adapting Islamic law to the exigencies of the age, and c) “secularist” (or “secular-minded”) groups, who advocate a pluralist and democratic vision of the state that entails substantial structural and institutional changes in its legal and political apparatus, and in the relationships between the state, army, and religious leadership.17 In their advocacy of ijtihad, these disparate “schools of thought” are shaped by common influences, though the first is often connected by detractors with fundamentalist and even terrorist movements, and the latter two with excessive admiration for Western intellectual traditions and “liberal” values. Although



Mufti ‘Urmani names all three as his ideological opponents in several of the works examined here, it is the first two groups mentioned that are of special interest to this study, since they, more than the “secularists”, have substantively engaged the questions of ijtihad and taqlid in contemporary debates about the implementation of Shari “a law. Recipients of modern secular education in addition to their training in the Islamic sciences, “Islamists” and “modernists” are usually lay scholars with less formal madrasa training than their counterparts in previous generations, though many of them have also been educated in one of the latter-day dini madaris established in the 1980s and 1990s in the Subcontinent. Many among them embrace a vision of tajdid o islah (revival and reform) that expresses a disdain for the traditionalist, classically-educated ‘Ulama’ and the dini madaris that produce them.18

The touchstone for a number of ongoing debates between these lay scholars and traditional ‘Ulama’ has been the provenance of ijtihad (specifically, who is equipped and entitled to practice it, and how?), and its corollary, taqlid, often labeled a static and outdated method of jurisprudence, ill-equipped to meet the exigencies of the present age and inappropriate for scholars, who have a responsibility to perform ijtihad. In the estimation of Mufti ‘Urmani, the majority of lay scholars who are exercising ijtihad operate with little to no knowledge of the foundational principles and application of Islamic Shari “a — here comprising moral, spiritual, and praxis-oriented aspects of faith — and in disregard of the science of independent reasoning with its requirements of training in both substantive law and the intricate methodologies of Islamic jurisprudence. In his estimation, ijtihad is a matter that should be left to expert scholars, and even then with many restrictions. In Islahi Khutubat (Discourses on Reform), Mufti ‘Urmani challenges the criticisms of Islamist and modernist ‘Ulama’ against the practice of taqlid, characterizing their predilection for unbridled ijtihad in sarcastic and dismissive terms. He writes, declining to identify by name any particular interlocutor:

We have a very well-known thinker. I call him this because in his field he is known as a ‘thinker.’ There is a verse of the Qur’an that says:

‘Cut off the hands of a male or female thief.’

This ‘thinker’ has offered the following interpretation of the verse, that ‘the thief ’ means the capitalist who establishes large-scale industries. And the ‘hand’ means industries and “cutting” means nationalization; therefore, the meaning of the verse is that all of the capitalist industries should be nationalized. Thus will the door of thievery be closed.19

And yet, despite his disdain for what he feels are the lax standards under which ijtihad is currently exercised, ‘Urmani own position on ijtihad is not unequivocal. He explains, briefly, when ijtihad is permissible:



The jurisdiction of ijtihad begins where a categorical, definitive verse of the Qur’an does not exist. Where a [legal] definitive verse exist, using rational thinking to make a [legal] pronouncement against the verse, in truth, is an act that [allows rational thinking to] operate outside of its jurisdiction and [that] distorts the meaning of the religion as a consequence.20

Using the example of a case in which an (anonymous) argument for the permissibility of eating pork is based on what appears to be an attempt to determine the reasoning behind the prohibition of this substance, Mufti ‘Urmani shows that the bases upon which the reasoning is based, namely the unhygienic and therefore unhealthy standards under which swine were once raised, according to the interlocutor; the change of circumstances which the contemporary existence of “hygienic farms” for swine has occasioned; and the conclusion arrived at, that since hygienic farms have improved the standards under which swine are being raised today, pork should be permissible for Muslims to consume, not only constitute an unsound use of rational thinking (“aql ), but also violate express injunctions in the Qur’an that have forbidden this substance.21 This is a fundamental violation of the rules of extracting laws, since no law can permit what the Qur’an has expressly prohibited in clear verses.22 For Mufti ‘Urmani, the problem with human reasoning (“aql ) is not the fallibility of the rational faculties of human beings in and of itself, but that human reasoning is performed without attention to the rules of istinbat, or extracting legal rules from the sources of Islamic Shari “a, which are themselves grounded in Divine guidance and revelation. More fundamentally, he argues that such reasoning (as illustrated by the above example) is being applied in all cases, and is consequently being used to justify various kinds of morally objectionable behavior and narrow self-interest.23

On the other hand, Mufti ‘Urmani argues that taqlid has been unfairly branded as an impediment to modernization despite the fact that many lay intellectuals who oppose taqlid in fact engage in forms of it without admitting that they are, in truth, doing so, because they follow the fatawas24 of ‘Ulama’ who, in many cases, do not offer proof for their judgments. In other cases these lay scholars resort to the books of fiqh produced by eminent classical scholars of the Law to derive dubious arguments against taqlid, although, Mufti ‘Urmani laments, they too often overlook the standard books of the four Sunni schools (madhahib) and instead turn to those produced by such controversial scholars as Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Hazm.25 Moreover, Mufti ‘Urmani sees in contemporary denunciations of taqlid a hidden agenda of modernization, an agenda that seeks to dismantle the edifice of classical Muslim scholarship, and in so doing, “to bolster absurd interpretations legalizing promiscuity, profane photography, dancing, usury, and music.”26 Here, arguing a-historically that



“absolute taqlid” (the use of fatawa from different imams) was rendered inoperative by scholars centuries ago because of a desire to curb the abuse of ambiguous issues in the Qur’an and sunna, he laments the “unbridled pursuit of one’s caprices and passions” that he sees as endemic in contemporary Islamic practice.27 For him, these debates point not just to methodological differences among ‘Ulama’ with different kinds of training, occupying different social locations, nor just to what one might consider much less rigorous standards of training to which “reformed” dini madaris hold their graduates, but also to the decline of moral values among those who are regarded as the guardians of Islam. Blame, as he sees it, may be partly laid on the low standards of proficiency which institutions require of students and faculty, partly on their undue focus on imitation of the West and the concomitant lack of proper integration of Islamic education into the general curriculum, and partly on the moral shortcomings of instructors:

Nowadays institutions have been established in order to compile and edit Islamic laws. [But] in the[se institutions] attention has not been given to those provisions [as necessary for the task], and generally, in [pursuit of ] this goal such individuals [as those] who neither understand the Qur’an and sunna, nor are versed in the nature of Islamic Shari “a have been selected [to run them]. They have not spent any significant part of their lives acquiring [knowledge of ] the Islamic sciences. The result is that they are awe-struck by Western [intellectual] thought and they have opened the door to the alteration and modification [of the meanings of words] in Islam. Because of this, the fitna of separation and confusion has awakened among the Muslims [even] more than previously . . .28

The failures of these institutions also reflect the inadequacy of the “pipeline” from public education to the more specialized institutions, the former of which lack a substantive Islamic pedagogical component, instead privileging epistemologies derived from the Western intellectual tradition.

When the British formed an idea to paint us in their [own] color, their first and most effective weapon was that they would change our system of education. With such a system of education, they ruled over us, who were made into British Indians, and whose singular goal was the formation of such an understanding that our ways of thinking [would be derived] from the wisdom of the West. Thus, in each division of life, the superior, awe-inspiring shadow of the West [predominated]. The only possible way to break [the power of ] this spell is for us to change our system of education and inject the Islamic way of thinking, and understanding into its veins and to courageously extract and do away with this Western venom that has poisoned the understanding of our youth and has prevented them from entering onto the path of Islam.29



This scheme does not mean that we keep our students ignorant of the developments of the new era, nor does it mean that we cannot benefit from the new experiments that the people of the West have made in different aspects of [intellectual] knowledge and the arts, but [rather, my] argument is that we firmly integrate Islam and Islamic temperament and taste in our students in such a way that, along with that received wisdom [of Islam], and after developing a high level of skill in the world’s sciences and arts, a pure and wise, self-possessed Muslim [who] can truly serve country and society and who is worthy of emulation may emerge.

Finally, the criteria by which the instructors in these institutions are evaluated must be strengthened.

[T]he most important thing is that in the educational institutions [of Pakistan], a hard look is taken at the time of confirming [the appointment of ] teachers, so that those people whose employment has been confirmed are proficient in the art of teaching. Besides demonstrating proof [of their teaching abilities], they [must] bear the greatness of God and the Prophet in their hearts. [One must] scrutinize them [to make sure that they] are accomplished and loyal servants of Islam and Pakistan.30

Ironically, Mufti ‘Urmani’s characterization of recipients of “modern” education in the works surveyed here collapses the complex motivations that pit them against both classically-educated ‘Ulama’ and Western intellectual thinkers: their preference for ijtihad is seen both as a consequence of the influence of ideas about “modern” education and what that entails, as promulgated by the West and those who are “Westoxicated,”31 and as the failure of an educational system that has neither adequately prepared students to function effectively in the modern world, nor given them the moral and intellectual acumen to command respect as guardians of Islam from the majority of their own countrymen.

The {Ulama} between Islamization and Politics: Socio-Economic and Political Variables 1977–1993

In Pakistan, the distinction between traditionally-educated ‘Ulama’, those ‘Ulama’ who have been the products of more recent madrasa education, and lay intellectuals is indicative of political and socio-economic developments that followed in the wake of the coup d’état that brought General Zia’ ul-Haq to power in 1977.32 From 1977–88 the administration of General Zia’ pursued a program of Islamization under a policy known as Nizam-i Mustafa.33 While this policy ostensibly involved the implementation of Shari “a law as the law of the land, it also pursued programs that both privatized national industries and accelerated industrialization. One short-term effect of these programs was a phenomenal growth in GDP. With the onset of Soviet expansion in neighboring Afghanistan, prompting the U.S. government under President Ronald Reagan



to channel large sums of “aid” to Pakistan for fighting the Soviets and supporting the Afghan mujahidin, Pakistan’s economy was further strengthened. With this wealth, General Zia’ sought to expand the ranks of the religious scholars who would form the intellectual vanguard of politicized Islam and fill the ranks of an “Islamic bureaucracy” beholden to the government; before this time, the dini madaris had been of little significance to political developments in the country.34

In seeking to produce such a vanguard, the administration of General Zia’ once again revisited the question of reforming the curriculum of the dini madaris, this time with a view to co-opting the ‘Ulama’ and winning their support for the military regime. In a 1979 report offering recommendations on madrasa reform, generated by a number of central committees,35 it was suggested that the dini madaris should offer some of the same kinds of “essential” subjects that were being offered in government schools, while eliminating some of the “non-essential” secular subjects that had long been part of the Dars-i Nizami curriculum. These suggestions were not new — earlier reports generated in 1962 had made similar recommendations. In 1979, however, these recommendations functioned as part of a concerted effort on the part of the state to exercise control over the dini madaris and co-opt them for the purposes of carrying out the Nizam-i Mus†afa. They also carried the promise of government employment for students after their graduation. Incentives offered to the ‘Ulama’ to support this scheme included financial aid to dini madaris and official recognition of the degrees conferred by them, and scholarships and other perks to students.36 The end result was that many of those ‘Ulama’ who had initially opposed the intervention of government in the dini madaris became supporters of these educational schemes. In particular, in 1980 the Wafaq al-madaris al-‘arabiyya, the largest Deobandi umbrella organization, which had been established in 1956, vehemently opposed the proposals for curricular changes put forward by the National Committee on Dini Madaris in 1979, but by 1983 had accepted the idea of curricular changes, and produced an extended curriculum to conform with the government’s requirements. This new curriculum extended the course of study from 8 to 16 years of instruction.37

Other, unforeseen consequences of this initiative changed both the face and the character of the dini madaris. General Zia’s policy of linking these institutions to zakat (alms tax on wealth), enacted in 1980, enabled their growth across the country in ways exceeding those facilitated by the sponsorship and funding of dini madaris by Persian Gulf countries from 1975–1979.38 In 1980 the Zakat and ‘Ushr Ordinance was enacted to enable the state to collect zakat and “ushr (alms tax on a harvest) and take charge of their disbursement to the poor and needy, widows and orphans, the disabled,



students of dini madaris, and other recipients. The Ordinance also made it possible for religious foundations to access zakat funds to establish new dini madaris.39 While some dini madaris resisted the notion of further “modernization” of their syllabus at the expense of the traditional sciences, resented the state’s encroachment into their affairs, and refused these funds, many others did not. Notably, a significant number of groups responded to the opportunities provided by the Ordinance by founding new religious schools. Although the numbers are disputed, all agree that the numbers of dini madaris grew exponentially under General Zia’s administration.40 Among these, observers have noted the prevalence of pronounced sectarianism, close ties to political parties and institutions like the Jami‘at-i ‘Ulama’-i Islam, and even extremist and violent tendencies within a large portion of these, with sectarian affiliation and strong-arm tactics (including the recruitment of militias) taking precedence over mastery of the religious sciences in the majority of these newer dini madaris.41 Perhaps unsurprisingly, many among their leadership do not subscribe to traditional views on the purpose of religious education, or on the necessity of a religious elite to safeguard and dictate the parameters of this education.42

At the beginning of General Zia’s efforts to co-opt religious institutions, his principal targets were not from the older ranks of religious scholars, but rather, from the ranks of academics, intellectuals, and bureaucrats — this in fact worked to broaden the spectrum of those receiving a madrasa education. Few members of the religious elite initially participated in state-led efforts to reform the dini madaris. As scholars like Jamal Malik have pointed out, these efforts precipitated a revolt on the part of the old guard, particularly those from within the ranks of the Deobandis, who argued against the state’s co-optation of religious institutions, and in particular, against the proposals put forward by the National Committee on Dini Madaris to modernize and streamline the madrasa curriculum.43 Their opposition largely changed with continued pressure by the state, repeated offers of support of the dini madaris through zakat (charitable donations), and promises to recognize degrees from these institutions as equivalents to those from national universities (this latter in 1981 and 1982). Another trend in the relationships between the old guard and newer madrasa students may be only partly attributed to General Zia’s policies on madrasa education. Although the state’s Nizam-i Mus†afa initially provoked competition for resources and control of dini madaris between the “old guard” ‘Ulama’ and the newer ranks of madrasa students, the lines between the two groups became more blurred as the latter began to found and create their own schools, and to aspire to the level of knowledge possessed by the old guard. With the spread of democracy movements in the country in the late 1980s, particularly under the initial period of Benazir Bhutto’s rule,



which dampened state support of religious institutions, and the economic decline of this period, extending to the early 1990s under the first administration of Nawaz Sharif,44 employment opportunities for graduates of the more recently established dini madaris, were much fewer in number than expected. The end result was that the majority of jobs that had been created for Islamic scholars by General Zia’s administration — jobs in the Federal Shari “a Court, the Majlis-i Shura, Zakat and “Ushr Committees, mosques controlled by the state, banks and other financial institutions, and other religious-political establishments — went to the old guard of ‘Ulama’, who had received a superior education from their high-ranking instructors at the more established dini madaris. Very to few positions went to recent madrasa graduates from the newer-style institutions, whose education had been compromised both by a mixed syllabus (and relative lack of mastery of the traditional sciences), and by the sectarianism that characterized the newer-style dini madaris.45 Many among these recent graduates became embroiled in the “jihadist” movements that cropped up in various parts of the world, particularly post-Soviet Afghanistan, or were drawn into the criminal activities that plagued but also propped up many of the radical, extremist dini madaris.

Aside from these socio-economic and political developments from 1977 to 1993, the divide between classically-trained ‘Ulama’ and the more recent products of madrasa education also reflects important social and intellectual shifts in Islamic discourse, in that in many cases the most popular preachers are not those who represent the old guard (who speak best to other religious scholars), but rather, those who are able to relate to the common person on the street, those who are able, and willing, to make use of the popular media, to promote their understanding of Islam.46 In light of the proliferation of demotic texts written by these intellectuals since the 1980s — texts covering a wide variety of topics and genres and making liberal references to a number of noted classical jurisprudents, including the reference works composed by the founders of the four Sunni legal schools, Malik ibn Anas, ash-Shafi‘i, Abu Hanifa, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal — one could say that these scholars have been able to successfully carve out a meaningful space for themselves within the landscape of religious authority. Yet if the explosion of such popular works indicates increased intellectual activity and debate among these newer generations of scholars (with widely divergent levels of competence), it also highlights the intense factionalism that divides them and prevents them from coalescing into a movement that is truly capable of undermining the authority of their rival claimants. Among the many issues on which they stand at odds with each other, and with the old guard of ‘Ulama’, the propensity of these newer religious scholars and lay preachers to turn to ijtihad to explain, and



justify, matters of Islamic Shari“a (in both the general and the legal sense) has been a major point of contention, one that Mufti ‘Urmani has addressed at length in many of his written works and speeches.

An Islamic discursive traditionMufti ‘Urmani’s wholesale support of the classical jurisprudential tradition

— with an emphasis on a limited exercise of ijtihad among mujtahids and the use of taqlid by both lay scholars and those ‘Ulama’ who do not possess an adequate command of the sources and tools of istinbat (extracting legal rules from the sources of Shari “a) — both indexes his particular social location among traditionalist ‘Ulama’, Islamists, and modernists in contemporary Pakistan, and points to his engagement of a much older discursive tradition that is inscribed in contemporary Islamic legal praxis. Here, I employ the notion of “Islamic discursive tradition” as it has been articulated by the anthropologist Talal Asad, as “a tradition of Muslim discourse that addresses itself to conceptions of the Islamic past and future, with reference to a particular Islamic practice in the present.”47 In Mufti ‘Urmani’s written work and speeches, and indeed, in the writing of many Deobandi ‘Ulama’ both past and present, one finds a tripartite discourse emphasizing scholastic aptitude, moral and intellectual capability, and a sense of responsibility for the Muslim public as being the guiding principles of the “expert” jurisprudent. This model of authority is dependent upon the central role played by the classically trained jurist — with his expertise in the methodologies and rationales employed to engage in the intricate process of istinbat — in articulating Islam as both an ideology and as a practical model for contemporary living. However, historically, classical madrasa education privileged a balance of rational and traditional sciences (ma“qulat and manqulat) deemed essential to the curriculum,48 while the curriculum proposed by the Wafaq al-madaris al-‘arabiyya and enacted in 1984 suggests that the most recent trend for Deobandi institutions has been in the direction of the traditional sciences. In effect, the Deobandi madaris have added few of the “modern, secular” subjects proposed in 1979 by Pakistan’s National Committee on Dini Madaris (some of these being added in a special two-year course that students may take after graduation) while essentially maintaining the Dars-i Nizami curriculum, with the exception of two subjects: prosody and discussions (munazara).49 Thus, traditionalist Deobandi scholars stand in sharp relief against born classically-trained scholars of the Zia era and those “latter-day” religious scholars educated in madaris that have increasingly privileged a mixed curriculum of traditional sciences (especially Qur’anic studies, Hadith, and tafsir), and modern “secular” subjects such as the natural sciences and English.



In Mufti ‘Urmani’s writing on Shari “a, fiqh, and reform, this tripartite discourse of jurisprudence is further configured in light of the predilection of traditionalist Deobandi ‘Ulama’ for stressing the balance of sensory knowledge (hawas ka “ilm), rational intelligence (“aql ), and divine inspiration (wahy) needed to extract and transmit knowledge from the sources of Shari “a. Mufti ‘Urmani’s argument proceeds deductively, from his explanation of the limitations of human sensory and intellectual capabilities to a discourse on the necessity of divine guidance in the work of jurisprudence. He begins with the argument that, in a secular state, there is no solid foundation for living one’s life or for conducting the business of government. Although secularists attempt to make a strong case for human reason (through its faculty of observation and through lived experience) as the sole basis of sound and effective governance, human reason in and of itself neither commands unlimited respect, nor does it have the power to enforce the public good (maslaha):

In a secular system of government, intelligence (“aql), experience (tajarba), and powers of observation (mushahida) have been established as the paradigm. Now our observation is this: how reliable is this paradigm? Is this paradigm suitable to provide guidance for human beings until the Day of Judgment?50

Identifying the three ways of obtaining knowledge as through 1) the senses, 2) rational thinking, and 3) divine guidance, he presents arguments about how each of the senses has its own jurisdiction, being incapable of entering into the jurisdiction of another and thereby performing its function. Beyond the domain of sensory perception is the ability to derive rational arguments, but even this is limited by the capabilities and motivations of the individual thinker. It is only in the third way of obtaining knowledge that we can transcend the limits of reason:

In those domains in which reason cannot venture, Allah Most High has bestowed a third means [of knowledge] upon humankind. And it is ‘Divine Revelation,’ meaning inspiration and divine instruction from Allah Most High. This knowledge has been [with us] from the beginning, when reason has reached the limits of its capabilities . . . by no means does this mean that reason is useless, but rather, that it is applicable on the condition that it is being employed within its [proper] jurisdiction. If it is used outside of its [proper] jurisdiction, it would be as if a person were [attempting to] make the eyes and the ears do the work of smelling.51

Now [one] must see that Islam’s claim is that [the powers of ] reason cannot comprehend every matter, but [rather], heavenly guidance is necessary. Divine Guidance is necessary, the Prophets and the



Messengers [of God] are necessary, and the Sacred Books are necessary. How true is this claim of Islam in our present society?52

Mufti ‘Urmani’s approach to the question of knowledge (“ilm) transcends both the idea of intellectual capability and that of the development of the ethico-moral self to evoke the sense of Islam’s foundational claim that humans, prone to falling into error, need Divine Guidance as relayed by the messengers of God and by the sacred texts by which he has revealed his will to human beings. A closer reading of the text also suggests that Mufti ‘Urmani’s case for the limits of human reason also evokes classical Sufi conceptions of the perfection of the soul: mastery and transcendence of the senses, the development of higher faculties, and tawakkul, complete trust in God’s guidance. Moreover, a focus on the importance of the scholar’s (“alim’s) obligation to develop these capabilities is itself an ongoing discursive tradition, one that calls attention to the ways in which scholars have traditionally embodied two forms of authority, buttressed by a command of the outer (zahiri ) and inner (ba†ini ) sciences.53 It also indexes two broader goals: the preservation and promulgation of the moral and spiritual values of Islam, and the production of a cadre of religious specialists fully equipped with the requisite tools and character to effectively guide the Muslim community. The cultivation of such discourses emerged early on in the Deoband movement, as Sayyid Mahbub Rizvi points out in his History of the Dar al-Ulum Deoband:

Special attention has been paid to this thing in the curriculum of the Dar ul-‘Ulum that through it the student, along with the preservation of the spiritual and moral values of Islam, may also acquire ability and expertise in the Islamic arts and sciences so that after going out from here he may be enabled to bear the responsibilities of sincere leadership of the community and may play an important role in the effort for the Islamic call and preaching. It is tried in the Dar al-‘Ulum to convince students that the purpose of their education is not at all the acquirement of degree or preparation for government services and offices.54

This, the author tells us, is an ethos that transcends any single Dar ul-‘Ulum to encompass the entire edifice of Deobandi dini madaris. And as articulated by Maulana Muhammad Ya‘qub Nanautvi, first Principal of Deoband, on the occasion of its first convocation in A.H. 1290 (1873 C.E.), the development of intellectual abilities in Deoband students such that they may have a true command of their subjects, is paramount:

. . . in these madrasahs, the greatest objective, besides the religious education, is the attainment of the power of ability. We did not rest content with only the religious sciences but as per the old system, have also provided subjects that develop intelligence, an excellent result of



which in the former times was that great savants and polymaths possessing prodigious abilities were produced in legions amongst the followers of Islam.55

Finally, Mufti ‘Urmani’s emphasis on the importance of methodological soundness in interpretation evokes the idea of an authoritative chain of praxis, one that is predicated upon a tradition of interpretation as found in classical and post-classical-era Hanafi jurisprudence. That is to say, his attention to sound methodology also highlights the ways in which authority is derived not simply from the act of interpretation itself (though the act as performed by the jurisprudent is predicated upon the Prophet’s own sunna), but from the jurisprudent’s ability to demonstrate conformity and continuation with both the Prophet’s practice of interpretation and with the practice of subsequent generations of Hanafi scholarship, specifically those that have produced the body of knowledge that may be rightly referred to as the Hanafi “interpretive tradition.”56 Within this interpretive tradition, consistency of argument is predicated upon principles of inquiry that draw upon the conclusions of prominent Hanafi scholars and their works (such the Hidaya of al-Marghinani [d. 1197 C.E.] and the Mukhtasar of al-Quduri [d. 1036 C.E.] ) but also upon a larger body of Hanafi epistemologies, principles of interpretation (including the technical definitions of words, logical distinctions, and their conformity with previous opinions, all according to Hanafi fiqh scholarship), and traditional interpretations.57 It is partly in light of the vast landscape of inquiries which this body of knowledge addresses, and in part because of the numerous ways in which taqlid may be exercised that Mufti ‘Urmani makes a strong case for the continued relevance of taqlid in addressing most of the issues affecting Muslims today.

Taqlid and Ijtihad in Mufti {Ußmani’s workIn his work, Taqlid ki Shar“i Hai6iyat (The Legal View on Following the

Opinion of a School of Law), a defense of the task of the muqallid, or jurist engaged in the process of taqlid, ‘Urmani’s rationale rests on an understanding of taqlid not as blind imitation or incontrovertible proof, but in its ideal form, a non-binding statement of opinion offered by the muqallid, made on issues where there are different and perhaps contradictory statements on the same issue in the Qur’an and Sunna, and the opinion of an expert, or mujtahid, is adhered to. In Mufti ‘Urmani’s view, the mujtahid is, in fact, fallible in his judgment on any particular matter of law, but nonetheless better trained and equipped with insight into the sources of Islamic fiqh that the muqallid does not possess. Conceding that taqlid may sometimes lack the dynamism of ijtihad, he attributes this to the individual who is engaged in the process, rather than the process itself. Thus, the taqlid of the lay person is of a more



restrictive and circumscribed variety than the taqlid of the “expert” scholar. Because the lay person, as Mufti ‘Urmani argues, does not possess an adequate command of the Arabic language, or, alternatively, is proficient in Arabic but lacks formal training in Islamic Studies with a qualified instructor, he or she

cannot get caught up in discussions of proofs to see which Imam’s view is stronger. His duty is merely to appoint one Mujtahid and follow his opinions in all matters. This is because he is not academically capable of making judgments of that kind. So much so that even if this person finds a Hadith which apparently contradicts the opinion of his Imam, he should not resort to following the Hadith, but rather adhere to his Imam’s opinion. He should assume that he has not understood the meaning or context of the Hadith appropriately or, he should have no doubt that his Imam has a stronger proof than the Hadith in question, which he may not be aware of . . . The truth is at this level of taqlid, no other alternative exists.58

Yet as he notes here, this rather restrictive form of taqlid is modified according to the capabilities of the muqallid. Thus, the taqlid of the expert scholar is conditioned by his command of both the Islamic sciences (tafsir, Hadith, fiqh) and the rational sciences (e.g., Arabic, rhetoric); his sound judgment; and his ability to comprehend a) the different levels of preference in argument, b) the difference between limited, restricted, and absolute statements, and c) the context under which the scholars he chooses to follow have operated. These capabilities enable the expert scholar to be

not only aware of the school of thought, but also of the reasoning behind the Fatwas of that school. As a Mufti , he is able to sift through the different opinions within his school and is qualified to issue Fatwas based on the needs of his age or to elucidate them accordingly. Hence, those issues, which are discussed in the books of the schools of thought, which he adheres to, may be evaluated according to the premises of the school. In exceptional circumstances, he may leave his Imam and follow the opinion of another Imam.59

In his book-length defense of taqlid, ‘Urmani points to the ways in which lay scholars have failed to understand the different levels, or degrees, of taqlid that testify to its continued relevance in addressing Muslims’ concerns today.60 Indeed, Mufti ‘Urmani sees taqlid as a dynamic force in the jurisprudential process that is fully capable of addressing most, if not all, questions facing Muslims in the contemporary age. This is only the case, however, when taqlid is exercised by the scholar who has the requisite training in the traditional and rational sciences and the intellectual and moral capability to engage in this complex process. Moreover, the muqallid is in no way prevented from continuing to search into the meanings of the Qur’an and Sunna to clarify a



given matter, even as he follows the opinion of a mujtahid. Understood thus, Mufti ‘Urmani explains, the muqallid cannot be understood as following the mujtahid rather than the Qur’an and sunna. Indeed, Mufti ‘Urmani’s lengthy discussion of the different levels of taqlid here — particularly as practiced by the expert scholar — barely scratches the surface of its complexity.61

In other circumstances, taqlid and ijtihad may converge: with some restrictions, it may be practiced by the muqallid who has reached the level of a mujtahid-i mu†laq (one equipped to extract a new ruling from the foundational sources using ijtihad). This is the fourth of four levels of taqlid ‘Urmani identifies. In this particular case, the muqallid may follow the opinion of a Companion (understood to be a Companion whose authority and opinion as a source of law has generally been agreed upon by jurists), on a matter of law upon which the Qur’an and sunna are silent or unclear, preferring the Companion’s opinion (ra”y) to the muqallid ’s own ijtihad.62 Thus understood, ijtihad constitutes both an engagement with absolute taqlid (drawing from the opinion of a jurist of any of the law schools, or in this case, a scholar not associated with a particular law school but whose opinion is generally agreed upon as valid as a source for a ruling of law), and an act of independent reasoning in the choosing of opinions from among the Companions. Likewise, taqlid and ijtihad may converge in the ruling on a new issue not treated in the classical literature of jurisprudence. In such cases, Mufti ‘Urmani opines, modern issues demanding ijtihad should be left to an “expert” (i.e., classically-trained) scholar and not the lay person (viz.: the lay scholar or the secularly-trained “alim). The classically-trained scholar can sift through the principles established by earlier mujhtahids and resolve new problems based on these.63 Other acts of ijtihad he endorses involve rulings on the authenticity of Ahadith to be used as sources for legal opinion.64

Mufti ‘Urmani’s defense of taqlid, coupled with his apparent preference for ijithad in certain matters of jurisprudence, appears to constitute a contradiction in his thought. However, understood as drawing from a particular discourse on ijtihad as it was predominantly practiced in the classical sense, expressed in the words of Khaled Abou El Fadl as a “methodology for an open process of discourse and determination,”65 it cannot be seen as contradictory. Rather, ‘Urmani’s discourse evokes the tendency among classical jurists in the post-Shafi‘i era of synthesis (2nd and 3rd centuries A.H.) to apply an understanding of ijtihad as a rigorous and virtually scientific process requiring of the mujtahid both technical expertise and certain moral and intellectual gifts, without which he or she could not apply ijtihad to new requirements. It also recalls the elision between ijtihad and taqlid in classical jurisprudential praxis. Although the particularities of istinbat could vary somewhat, the process comprised three basic levels of inquiry: first, the



mujtahid must assess the reliability of the passage to be used (Qur’anic, or on matters about which the Qur’an is silent, the sunna of the Prophet). He or she must then interpret the passage, determining the precise meaning of its words, and placing the passage in the context of other passages. In the case of an extra-Qur’anic passage, there must be no contradiction with the clear verses of the Qur’an. In the case of a Qur’anic passage, he or she must be able to determine if subsequent revelation has nullified the passage in question.66 In order to be able to execute this task, the mujtahid must himself (or herself) fulfill several requirements. He or she must have extensive knowledge of the Arabic language, and of pre-Islamic history and customs; be familiar with the histories of the religions to which the Qur’an and sunna refer continually; know the opinions of his or her predecessors (the fuqaha ’), with the abrogated and abrogating verses of the Qur’an, and should always interpret ambiguous verses in light of the sunna of the Prophet, or the ijma“ (consensus) of the early Companions, or qiyas (analogy); he or she must be skilled in the methods of dialectical and analogical interpretation; be of sound mind, live a life of perfect conformity to the faith, and must not be prone to hasty or rash decisions.67 He or she must also limit the exercise of ijtihad to the level of his or her own training (e.g. whether trained in the extraction of particular questions of law, confined to the limits of a particular school [and thus able to establish rules for new cases, but unable to create a new method or system of deduction], restricted to the deduction and exegesis of rules established by the great mujtahids of the past and thus confined to clarifying questions that are vague or doubtful, or able to formulate new rules and methods as well as extract new laws on a particular case, the highest level of ijtihad). Mufti ‘Urmani also emphasizes, as a moral component, the humility and sagacity needed to understand and appreciate the formidable nature of the task of engaging in ijtihad, and thus, ultimately, to be receptive to the divine inspiration (wahy) that, in his opinion, is a crucial component of engaging in the task of discerning the law.

ConclusionMufti ‘Urmani’s discourses on taqlid and ijtihad may be understood not as

an opposition to the latter or an unequivocal preference for the former, but as a warning against what he sees as a disturbing trend within the ranks of lay scholars of Islam: an arrogant and misguided attitude among those who feel they can dispense with the classical tradition (and concurrently, with ‘Ulama’ like him who represent it). The important work of Vali Nasr, Jamal Malik, Muhammad Qasim Zaman, and others on the ascendancy of the ‘Ulama’ in the contemporary landscape of Islamic reform characterizes their motivation as an index of the jockeying for influence and office in political, educational, and



activist-oriented institutions of power in Pakistan and beyond. This finds expression in competing visions of Islamization among lay, modernist, and traditionalist ‘Ulama’ in general, and (in what Nasr refers to as the) divisions between the Madani and Thanvi factions of Deoband, in particular.68 However, Mufti ‘Urmani himself professes to harbor no such designs. As expressed in his work, it is no mere competition for financial gain or spheres of political influence that moves him to speak out; rather, it is a fear that the whole edifice of Islamic learning is slowly being dismantled by the very people who articulate their aim to reform it. Thus his desire to, as he states, “clarify the practice of millions of Muslims around the globe,” may be seen in this light.69

Mufti ‘Urmani’s emphasis in these works on Islamic Shari “a as a set of moral-ethical guidelines, rather than as a code of law with absolute boundaries, sits uneasily with the particularities of Hanafi jurisprudence and its restriction of ijtihad which he outlines as the cornerstone of a comprehensive religious system (one notices his frequent juxtaposition of a secular vs. an Islamic state, characterizing the one as based on “rational intelligence, experience, and the powers of observation” and the other as based on Divine inspiration (wahy) and on employing human reason within the limits of Revelation). And yet this tension ultimately suggests an attempt to reconcile the different factions within Sunni Islam and unite against the Shi‘a and Ahmadi “heresies” and against those who he understands to be the enemies of Islam in the West (especially those who oppose a government based on Islamic Shari “a law). Drawing from the examples of fitna in Islamic history, he positions himself as mediator, arguing for the need to bring madrasa education back to the rigorous levels and high quality of old, with emphasis on mastery of the traditional and rational sciences, as he seeks to discourage the articulation of competitive ideologies, expressed most vehemently as denunciation of other Muslims as kafirun, or unbelievers, because of differences of opinion on matters of Shari “a. In this respect he also positions himself as a reformer of the would-be reformers of Islam, and indirectly, encourages us to look at the reformulation of Islamic authority — and Islamic authorities — as an ongoing and dynamic process of transformation.

Endnotes* I would like to thank Professors Vali Nasr and Muhammad Qasim Zaman for the

helpful comments and suggestions they offered during the course of my research for this article.1. I have chosen to transliterate Mufti ‘Urmani’s name according to the Urdu, rather

than the Arabic language. From Arabic, his name would be transliterated ‘Uthmani. In most cases, the transliterations in this article are from the Urdu language.



2. This point is made by Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1996; 2004): 68–9.

3. Madaris is the plural form of madrasa. Dini madaris, or institutions of Islamic religious education (which also include maktabs, or “elementary schools”), will be used to designate the plural, or general sense of madrasa, while madrasa will be used to refer to a single institution.

4. See Amyn B. Sajoo ed., Civil Society in the Muslim World Contemporary Perspectives (London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004).

5. Eickelman and Piscatori, Muslim Politics, 13. Eickelman and Piscatori use the term “new religious intellectuals” in reference to those who have been educated in secular or state institutions, or those who have been educated in both secular or state institutions and traditional dini madaris.

6. See Kit Roane, “Fatally Flawed Bonds,” Conde Nast Portfolio.com. Sept. 23, 2008 (News and Markets Section) (last accessed June 3, 2009). Mufti ‘Urmani’s support for the Dow Jones, and indeed, the very existence of a Dow Jones Shari‘a Board, on which Mufti ‘Urmani serves, is seen by some as a curious development given the prohibition in Islamic Shari‘a law against interest. Yet Urmani has addressed such questions on the permissibility of investing and speculating in stock and commodities markets in several of his fatawa. In most cases, he is able to argue for the permissibility of such investments — with strict limitations, including virtual prohibition on speculation in the commodities markets — on the basis of two kinds of “joint enterprise”, musharakah and mudarabah. In these partnerships, investors participate in the profits, or losses, of a given company. See his Contemporary Fatawa, ed. and comp. Muhammad Shoaib Omar (Lahore; Karachi: Idara-e-Islamiat, 2001), section 8, “Economics”, especially chapters 1–7. He also explains the meanings of these terms in detail on the following website: http://www.darululoomkhi.edu.pk/fiqh/islamicfinance/musharakah.html (last accessed Feb 4, 2009).

7. See ‘Urmani’s discussion of the debates over the Hudud Ordinances in “The Islamization of Laws in Pakistan: the Case of Hudud Ordinances.” Muslim World 96 no. 2. (April 2006): 287–304.

8. However, Jamal Malik has aptly noted the persistence of divisions among what he calls “jayyid ‘Ulama’” (progressives), Salafi elements, and traditionalists within the ranks of Deobandis. See his book Colonization of Islam: Dissolution of Traditional Institutions in Pakistan (Delhi: Manohar 1996), 169–171.

9. The first view is exemplified by the work of Anita Weiss, Charles Kennedy, and Vali Nasr, while the second characterizes Barbara Metcalf ’s work on the Deobandis. A third view may also be discerned, in which the Deobandis emerge at the vanguard of modern intellectual production, exemplified in part by the breadth, scale, and continuity of Deobandi thought from the 19th century. This view, which I share, does not discount Deobandis’ political involvements, but emphasizes the broad influence and scope of this school of thought in a number of intellectual arenas. See Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Ashraf Ali Thanawi: Islam in Modern South Asia (Oxford, UK: One world Publications, 2008): 121–22.

10. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 189.

11. Ibid., 94–6, 104–5, 134, 140 for details on some of these points.12. See Mohammad Hashim Kamali, “Methodological Issues in Islamic Jurisprudence,”

Arab Law Quarterly 11, no. 1 (1996): 4. 13. The Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (Sahaba) are those of his generation,

who may have known him well, tangentially, or not at all. Tabi “un (Successors) is the term used to refer to the generation of Muslims that succeeded the Prophet and his Companions. The Jurists (Fuqaha” ) followed the Successors and, in this usage, were the specialists who

http://www.darululoomkhi.edu.pk/fiqh/islamic�nance/musharakah.html



worked out the principles of fiqh. See ibn Hazm, al-Ihkam fi usul al-ahkam. Translated in part by Norman Calder, Jawid Mojaddedi, and Andrew Rippin in Classical Islam: a Sourcebook of Religious Literature (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 205.

14. Wael B. Hallaq, Authority, Continuity, and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 22. This does not imply that ijtihad did not continue. In fact, different classes of mujtahids continued to operate according to the degree of their authority to engage in ijtihad. On this latter point, see Louis Milliot and François-Paul Blanc, Introduction à l’Étude du Droit Musulman (Paris: Sirey, 1987), 132–35.

15. See Hallaq, Authority, Continuity, and Change, Chapter 4, and “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16, no. 1 (1984): 3–41. It is also worth noting that the widespread perception that the “doors to ijtihad ” were closed in the 11th century was popularized in the West by scholars like H.A.R. Gibb, Whither Islam? (London: V. Gollancz, 1932) , and Modern Trends in Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), Majid Khadduri, “From Religious to National Law” in Thompson & Reischauer, eds. Modernization of the Arab World (London: Van Nostrand, 1966), N.J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964), Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (London, Oxford University Press, 1962), and Fazlur Rahman, Islam (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1966; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). The inconsistencies in these studies of ijtihad, as well as the tendency to oversimplify definitions of it, are investigated in Shaista P. Ali-Karamali and Fiona Dunne, “The Ijtihad Controversy,” Arab Law Quarterly 9, no. 3 (1994): 238–257.

16. Here, some ambiguity with regard to the notion of “classically trained” jurist must be acknowledged. Dini madaris in the Subcontinent have typically followed the dars-i nizami curriculum since the 18th century, with its emphasis on the rational sciences (e.g. Islamic law, logic, philosophy, syntax, and Arabic). However, in the late 19th century, curricular reform in this system entailed the mélange of religious and “secular,” subjects, and/or the reform of traditional religious education (the rational and traditionally transmitted sciences, or the ma“qulat and manqulat). See Jamal Malik, “Dynamics among Traditional Religious Scholars and Their Institutions in Contemporary South Asia.” The Muslim World 87, nos. 3–4 (July–October, 1997): 200–201. Many of today’s dini madaris in Pakistan have undergone additional curricular changes that have resulted in a more “modernized” curriculum that incorporates, at four different levels, such subjects as “General Science” (levels 1, 2, and 4), English and Political Science (level 3), and “Pakistan Studies” (level 4). My use of the term “classically trained” in this study refers to the dars-i nizami curriculum prior to the changes that occurred in the last quarter of the 20th century, which the Deobandi madaris have followed more or less.

17. Under “secular-minded” Mufti ‘Urmani would include groups such as the Women’s Action Forum, founded in 1981, which has lobbied hard for the dissolution of the Hudud Ordinances in Pakistan, which they view as discriminatory and enabling the abuse, imprisonment, and execution of women for crimes in which (in most cases) they are not at fault. Mufti ‘Urmani’s support of these Ordinances is well-known. Although Mufti ‘Urmani himself singles out “Salafis,” “Wahhabis,” “modernists,” and “secularists” for criticism, and this article also uses these terms, many scholars, including myself, feel that these umbrella terms often do more to obscure than clarify the nature of these “schools of thought.” For a more nuanced treatment of Salafis, see Quintan Wiktorowicz, “The Salafi Movement: Violence and the Fragmentation of Community,” in miriam cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence, eds., Muslim Networks from Hajj to Hip Hop (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005) and “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement”, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29, 2006; 207–239. On the Wahhabis, see Qeyamuddin Ahmad, The Wahhabi



Movement in India (Delhi: Manohar, 1994), and Natana J. De Long-Bas, Wahhabi Islam (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). On modernists, see Charles Kurzman, Modernist Islam 1840 –1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). For an Islamic argument for a secular state, see Abdullahi Ahmed an-Na‘im, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari “a (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2008).

18. S.V.R. Nasr, “The Rise of Sunni Militancy in Pakistan: The Changing Role of Islamism and the Ulama in Society and Politics,” Modern Asian Studies 34 (2000): 147–49.

19. Muhammad Taqi ‘Urmani, Islahi Khutubat [Discourses on Reform] (Karachi: Meman Islamic Publishers, 2000), 42. My translation.

20. Ibid., 40. My translation. By definitive he means to call attention to the distinction that is made between those verses for which a meaning is unequivocal, and those whose meaning is ambiguous, or open to multiple interpretations.

21. Ibid., 40–41. See also the following chapters and verses in the Qur ’an: 2: 173; 5:3, 6:145; and 6:115.

22. However, there is, in fact, a lack of consensus among religious scholars about which verses comprises the “clear verses” of the Qur’an. Discursively, this lack effectively works to restrict ijatihad, particularly as it would be exercised by liberal modernist ‘Ulama’.

23. ‘Urmani, Islahi Khutubat, 26–30, 41. His critique is not limited to contemporary ‘Ulama’. In these pages, Mufti ‘Urmani also draws upon an example from Islamic history, in which a certain ‘Abdallah bin Hasan Qairwani used rational reasoning to justify incest and thereby disguise an underlying motive: insulating a family’s wealth. He also points out several examples from Western political and intellectual discourses, including the justification for detonating the atom bomb on the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that was given at the end of World War II, and the acceptance of gay lifestyles in the United States, as part of his case against the indiscriminate use of rational reasoning as a basis for deriving a rule of law or moral argument in support of a particular course of action.

24. A fatwa (pl. fatawa) is a non-binding legal opinion submitted by a jurist or legal scholar.

25. Muhammad Taqi ‘Urmani, The Legal Status of Following a Madhhab, trans. Mohammad Amin Kholwadia (Karachi: Zam Zam Publishers, 2001). Also available online at http://www.cometoislam.com/fiqh/legal/main.htm. (last accessed Aug 25, 2008). The print English edition has been used in this article.

26. Ibid., 10227. Ibid., 103.28. Mir Taqi ‘Urmani, Nifa1-i Shari “a aur us ke masa”il [Implementation of the Shari“a

and Questions Concerning It ] (Karachi: Maktaba-yi Dar ul-‘Ulum, 1992), 74. My translation.29. Ibid., 82. My translation.30. Ibid., 83–84. My translation.31. “Gharb-zadegi ”, a Persian term employed by Iranian intellectuals that was coined

in the 1940s but gained widespread currency in the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.32. General Zia’ took power in a relatively bloodless coup and later had his

predecessor, Zulfiqar ‘Ali Bhutto, executed. Until then, state-sponsored Islam had been largely an undercurrent in Pakistani politics, despite the influence and activities of Islamic parties like the Jami‘at-i ‘Ulama’-i Islam and the Jami‘at-i Islami, which saw Pakistan as an Islamic state in opposition to the more secular-inclined vision held by its founder Muhammad ‘Ali Jinnah and his successors.

33. Outside of Pakistan, the majority view has been that Zia’s program of Islamization was aggressively pursued. However, Charles Kennedy has presented a dissenting view that is quite compelling. Calling into question General Zia’s Islamic inclinations, he argues

http://www.cometoislam.com/fiqh/legal/main.htm



that the Nizam-i Mustafa was part of a calculated political strategy, that General Zia’s commitment to it was guarded, that few actual reforms took place during Zia’s administration, and that those that did had a relatively minor impact on political, legal, social, and economic institutions of Pakistan at the time, or in the immediate aftermath of, his rule. This strategy was designed, Kennedy points out, in part to provide an Islamic justification for his military regime and to strengthen Pakistan’s ties with the wider Islamic world. See Charles H. Kennedy, “Islamization and Legal Reform in Pakistan, 1979–1989.” Pacific Affairs 63, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 62–77.

34. Jamal Malik, “Dynamics among Traditional Religious Scholars and their Institutions in Contemporary South Asia,” The Muslim World 87, nos. 3–4 ( July–October 1997): 206, and Nasr, “Rise,” 146–47.

35. As Muhammad Qasim Zaman has noted, the ranks of the committee that produced the first report in 1962 were dominated by government bureaucrats, with a few prominent religious scholars included. In the 1979 Report, the first produced under the regime of General Zia’ ul-Haq, the number of government bureaucrats serving on the committee was only slightly below the number of religious scholars who served. See his article, “Religious Education and the Rhetoric of Reform: The Madrasa in British India and Pakistan,” Comparative Studies of Society and History (1999): 310.

36. Ibid., 312–14.37. Malik, Colonization of Islam, 164.38. This is especially noteworthy in light of the many simplistic analyses that have

characterized the spread of dini madaris in the Subcontinent as resulting primarily from the radicalization of Islam. In fact, the picture is more complex, and the growth of dini madaris should be seen in light of policies of co-optation and conciliation of the ‘Ulama’ pursued not only during General Zia’s administration, but also those of his predecessor, Zulfikar ‘Ali Bhutto, and his successors, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and Pervez Musharraf. For a discussion of the growth of dini madaris in light of these policies, see Khalid Rahman and Syed Rashad Bukhari, “Pakistan: Religious Education and Institutions.” Muslim World 96, no. 2 (April 2006): 323–339, and International Crisis Group, “Pakistan: Dini madaris, Extremism, and the Military,” ICG Asia Report No. 36. (Islamabad/Brussels: ICG, 29 July 2002): 7.

39. See Grace Clark, “Pakistan’s Zakat and ‘Ushr as a Welfare System,” in Anita M. Weiss, Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan: The Application of Islamic Laws in a Modern State (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 88, and Shahid Javed Burkhi, Changing Perceptions and Altered Reality: Emerging Economies in the 1990s (Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2000), 163.

40. See the International Crisis Group, “Pakistan,” 2 nn 6 – 6a.41. See Nasr, “Rise,” 149–153. Professor Nasr also expressed the opinion, in a

personal correspondence, that the newer ranks of dini madaris and their students are also distinguished from the old guard by a greater influence of Hanbali law and Saudi-style Wahhabism. E-mail correspondence, October 5, 2008.

42. This is not to suggest a sharp divide between dini madaris that prioritize scholarly pursuits and those that prioritize political or military activities. In fact, the spectrum is much broader, and more complex, than such a dichotomy suggests.

43. Malik, “Islamization in Pakistan 1977–1985: The Ulama and their Places of Learning,” Islamic Studies 28, no. 1 (1989): 10.

44. Benazir Bhutto ruled form Dec 1989–Aug 1990 and again from October 1993–November 1996. Nawaz Sharif ruled Pakistan from November 1990–April 1993; again from May 26–July 18, 1993; and finally from February 1997–October 1999.

45. Some have argued that making religious scholars employees of the state effectively de-politicized a large number of ‘Ulama’. See, for example, Mumtaz Ahmad,



“Revivalism, Islamization, Sectarianism, and Violence in Pakistan,” in Pakistan: 1997, eds. Craig Baxter and Charles H. Kennedy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 106.

46. It should be noted that Mufti ‘Urmani also makes use of the popular media, and there are others like him who do the same, with great effect. As an indication of his relevance to key issues on the state of public debate in Pakistan and abroad, a number of his interviews and lectures have been posted on You Tube. A keyword search of his name on that website turned up over 60 postings, of which some featured criticisms of him by his detractors. Several other classically-trained scholars have, like Mufti ‘Urmani, become popular and well-respected among a number of different audiences. Among them must be mentioned Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the al-Azhar-educated shaikh whose al-Jazeera television program, Islam Online website, and Facebook pages have won him a wide spectrum of supporters.

47. Asad 1986: 14.48. The curriculum of dini madaris in the Subcontinent may be divided into several

stages. In Mughal times, both Muslims and Hindus received an education in these and other types of institutions, and the teaching of the ma“qulat, including philosophy, logic, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and music was underscored, especially by the Sufis and other mystic-minded groups. The dars-i nizami curriculum, usually attributed to Mulla Nizam ad-din Muhammad, (d. 1748), who founded the Farangi Mahal group of scholars in Lucknow, also emphasized the ma“qulat, although this curriculum, widely followed to this day, has undergone several transformations from school to school. See Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Religious Education and the Rhetoric of Reform: The Madrasa in British India and Pakistan,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41, no. 2 (April 1999): 303; and Malik, Colonization of Islam, 121–122.

49. Prosody is linguistics, while munazara refers to methods of intellectual debate. For more details on these curricular changes, see Table 21 in Malik, Colonization of Islam, 175–176. Essentially, the Wafaq’s proposals, enacted in 1984, comprises the following subjects: Qur’an: reading and memorization; morphology; syntax; Arabic; biography of the Prophet (Sira); arithmetic; social sciences; Islamic law; methods of Islamic law; logic; rhetoric; tafsir ; tradition; methods of tradition; principles of belief, scholastics; philosophy; religious studies; Urdu; Persian; gymnastics; morals (ikhlaqiyyat); and law of inheritance. After graduation, students may take the following in a special two-year course: Islamic history; economics; political science; cultural sciences; and comparative sciences of religion.

50. ‘Urmani, Islahi Khutubat, 23. My translation.51. Ibid., 25–26.52. Ibid., 26.53. Although even Sufi sources make a distinction between the “worldly” ‘Ulama’ and

the inward-looking mystics, this does not mean that ‘Ulama’ and Sufis were always very different from each other in their orientation towards the acquisition of knowledge. In fact, many of the renowned scholars of the past have been both ‘Ulama’ and Sufi shaikhs or disciples of Sufi shaikhs. Moreover, the ‘Ulama’ of Deoband have also often assumed these two forms of authority ‘alim and shaikh), and have historically maintained close ties with the Sufi orders (especially the Chishti, Qadiri, and Naqshbandi), although many Deobandi “‘Ulama’ have also disagreed with each other, and with non-Deobandis about the permissibility of certain beliefs and practices within Sufi circles. For a more detailed discussion of some of these disagreements, see the articles by SherAli Tareen, Fuad Naeem, and Brannon Ingraham in this volume.

54. Sayyid Mahbub Rizvi, Tarikh-hi Dar ul-ulum Diyoband. Translated into English by Murtaz Husain F. Quraishi as History of the Dar al-Ulum Deoband (Deoband, U.P, India: Idara-e Intemam, 1980), 221.



55. Nanautawi, cited in Rizvi 1980: 212.56. See Wheeler, Canon, 14–15.57. Ibid., 187–191. For some specific case examples, see 228–9.58. ‘Urmani, Legal Status, 67.59. Ibid., 73–74. The fact that most of the qualities he identifies are taken from Shah

Waliullah’s work is a noteworthy testament to the importance of Sufi thought in Mufti ‘Urmani’s thinking on this matter.

60. The complexity of the question of the layperson’s authority to even transmit fatwas as muqallid is evident as early as the 13th century, as attested by the traditionist an-Nawawi (d. 1277). In discussing the conditions under which a mufti who is a muqallid may transmit fatwas in areas of the law in which he was not a mujtahid, an-Nawawi states that there was a difference of opinion on the matter among the most prominent jurists, with some fuqaha” saying that it was, in fact, permitted, under certain conditions, while others maintained that it was absolutely forbidden. See his Al-Majmu“ Sharh al-Muhadhdhab. Translated in part by Calder, Mojaddedi, and Rippin in Classical Islam, 196. For a fuller discussion of the different ranks of muftis by an-Nawawi, see Norman Calder, “Al-Nawawi’s Typology of Muftis and its Significance for a General Theory of Islamic Law,” Islamic Law and Society 3, no. ii (1996): 137–164.

61. ‘Urmani, Taqlid, 66ff. For a more comprehensive treatment of the different levels of taqlid, see Hallaq, Authority, Continuity, and Change, pp. 16–21 and chapter 4.

62. Ibid., 14, 109.63. Ibid., 103.64. Ibid., 106. The early efforts of the Moroccan sociologist and feminist Fatima

Mernissi in this endeavor deserve acknowledgement here. Although her call to other Muslims to re-scrutinize the authenticity of the “authentic,” or sahih, Ahadith, in her 1979 book The Veil and the Male Elite was not taken up by others for decades, that very process is now underway in a number of places and among many Muslims, including Muslims in the US, Europe, and Canada. The ongoing efforts of the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs to enlist a number of academic scholars in an effort to “categorize” the vast corpus of Hadith materials may also be seen in this light, although the official position of the Ministry is that this is a purely academic, and not religious, effort.

65. Khaled Abou El Fadl, Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women (Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2001), 172.

66. The idea that a later (i.e., Medinan) Qur’anic passage may abrogate an earlier (i.e., Meccan) one is not without controversy in Islam; the more widely accepted premise is that a Qur’anic passage may abrogate a sunna of the Prophet.

67. Millot and Blanc, 131; Calder 199, Shafi‘ i’s Risala 306ff; Hasan 199.68. Nasr, “Sunni Militancy,” 169ff.69. ‘Urmani, Taqlid, 120.

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