Voices of Islam (232 page)

The Zaydis, generally regarded as the closest of all Shiites to Sunnis, upheld the validity of the Ramadan group prayer, affirming that ‘Ali contin- ued the practice during his caliphate.
29
The Imami Shi‘i school was generally antagonistic toward ‘Umar and viewed the historical record differently, rejecting ‘Umar’s decision as an unlawful
bid‘a.
Like Sunnis, they confirmed that the Prophet led the community in Ramadan night prayers for a short period. Unlike Sunnis, they contended that the Prophet not merely aban- doned the prayer but emphatically banned it in groups, concluding with the words: ‘‘Every
bid‘a
is misguidance, and the path of every misguidance [leads] to the Fire.’’ Imami sources agree that ‘Ali allowed the community to continue praying the Ramadan group vigil during his caliphate. Despite the fact that he personally opposed this practice, the pro-‘Umar sentiment was too strong, and the people were so attached to this ‘‘
sunna
of ‘Umar’’ that it was not politically feasible for ‘Ali to ban it.
30

Like the Qur’anic verse on monasticism, one of the most interesting points about ‘Umar’s ‘‘excellent
bid‘a
’’ is that it falls squarely within the domain of ritual acts of worship and, with the caveat of the Imami perspective, was widely regarded as good. Sunni sources report that Abu Umama—referred to earlier in conjunction with the verse on monasticism—admonished Muslims to be vigilant in observing the group vigil of Ramadan. He linked this practice explicitly to the Qur’anic allusion to monasticism and would say: ‘‘You have innovated the [practice of] standing in prayer during Ramadan, although it was not prescribed for you, for only the fasting [of that month] was prescribed. So, now that you have done it, remain constant in keeping up the prayer and never abandon it.’’
31

An eminent Sunni scholar, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, believed that ‘Umar called his decision a
bid‘a
because the Prophet had not instituted the vigil as a
Sunna
nor had Abu Bakr, the first caliph after him. Nevertheless, ‘Umar declared it ‘‘an excellent
bid‘a
’’ to indicate its initial legitimacy in the Prophet’s eyes and to emphasize to the people that, although it was technically a
bid‘a,
they should have no misgivings about it, since the Prophet had only declined to institute it for fear of making it obligatory.
32
The reasoning here is predicated on a standard principle of Islamic jurisprudence that nothing specific to the Prophet’s
Sunna
can be given a new legal status—obligatory or otherwise— after his death if he did not indicate that status during his lifetime. Thus, ‘Umar’s ‘‘excellent
bid‘a
’’ put into practice something the Prophet had looked upon favorably, while avoiding the Prophet’s fear of its becoming obligatory and burdensome. In the same vein, another famous Sunni jurist, Abu Bakr ibn al-‘Arabi, described ‘Umar’s institution of the prayer as a

8
Voices of Change

Sunna
and a
bid‘a
at the same time; it was a
Sunna
by virtue of the Prophet’s short-term precedent but a
bid‘a
because the Prophet declined to institute it. Ibn al-‘Arabi concluded: ‘‘How excellent was this
bid‘a
as a revived
sunna
and fully accomplished act of obedience!’’
33

These and other Islamic sources demonstrate the linguistic range of
bid‘a.
In the abstract, however,
bid‘a
was generally pejorative, although in certain circumstances, as we have seen, it could be transformed into its opposite.
Sunna,
by contrast, was almost invariably affi ve but had a semantic potential similar to
bid‘a
and could take on negative connotations, especially when used for reprehensible types of
bid‘a
that became customary. A famous hadith relates: ‘‘No human soul shall be killed wrongfully but that Adam’s first son shall carry a share of the guilt, for he was the first human to institute the
sunna
of murder.’’
34
Another Hadith uses
Sunna
in two different ways, fi in reference to a good
bid‘a
and second with regard to an odious one: ‘‘Whoever establishes a good
sunna
[
sunna hasana
] in Islam that is followed in practice afterward, will have recorded to his merit a reward equal to the reward of anyone who practices it, without any of their rewards being at all diminished. Whoever establishes an evil
sunna
[
sunna sayyi’a
] in Islam that is followed in practice afterward, will have recorded against him a burden equal to the burden of anyone who practices it without any of their burdens being at all lessened.’’
35

BID‘A
IN THE LEGAL TRADITION

The
Sunna–bid‘a
paradigm was shared by all Islamic denominations. All concurred on the fundamental obligation to follow the Qur’an and
Sunna.
But each sect and every school within a sect espoused different criteria for defining, interpreting, and applying the concepts.

The four principal Sunni schools differed among themselves on how to interpret Qur’anic texts. They concurred on the probity of all the Prophet’s Companions as authoritative transmitters of his
Sunna
—a crucial Sunni tenet and major point of difference between them and the Shi‘is and Ibadis—but each Sunni school employed markedly different methods in their understanding and utilization of the
Sunna
and, consequently, arrived at diverse conclusions regarding its legal status and content.
36

The Shi‘is, who had distinctive interpretations of the Qur’an, relied no less heavily upon the
Sunna
than the Sunnis. For the Imamis, the
Sunna
went beyond the teachings and normative example of the Prophet to include those of the 12 divinely guided Imams. Despite such differences, Shiite sources contain authoritative texts identical in wording to those of other denomina- tions like: ‘‘Follow the reports of God’s Messenger, God bless and keep him, and his
Sunna.
’’
37
The Ibadis ascribed, in principle, to the same obligation to follow the Qur’an and
Sunna
but differed by granting special status in its

Creativity, Innovation, and Heresy in Islam
9

transmission to the ‘‘the just Imams,’’ meaning the first two rightly guided caliphs, Abu Bakr and ‘Umar (excluding the caliphs ‘Uthman and ‘Ali) and to other authoritative figures like the Prophet’s wife ‘A’isha.
38

Likewise, regarding
bid‘a,
the theologians and jurists of all three Muslim denominations conceived of the term in similar ways. They concurred that the concept of
bid‘a
in its negative sense did not connote a blanket condem- nation of all innovative ideas and practices simply because they were new, while they rejected all
bid‘a
that appeared inconsistent with Prophetic precedent and Islam’s underlying principles.
39
The noted jurist and legal theorist Shatibi emphasized that the very notion that Islamic law stood for categorical prohibitions against change was grossly absurd to classical jurists. All scholars, he contended, concurred that it was intellectually repulsive to insist that Muslims could never diverge from the cultural norms of early Islamic Arabia or that any new development in life must be regarded as an unwarranted
bid‘a.
40

One of the most basic Islamic paradigms is the distinction between matters that are essentially nonritualistic and mundane (
mu‘amalat
) and others that are ritualistic and otherworldly in nature (
‘ibadat
). The first category refers to matters like war and peace, buying and selling, and marriage and divorce. Such nonritualistic concerns of human societies, although falling under the rubric of divine revelation and relevant to the law, were believed to serve tangible social goals and benefi Consequently, they had rationales (tangible legal objectives), that lent themselves to rational scrutiny, and were open to legal analysis and amendment. For this reason, many notable scholars held that
bid‘a
did not pertain to the domain of nonritualistic matters.
41
By contrast, matters of ritual like belief, prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage were an exclusively divine prerogative related to otherworldly realities like the secrets of salvation and the unseen. They served the purpose of purifying the soul, bringing people close to God, and winning His eternal pleasure. Consequently, they lacked discernable rationales, were inscrutable to reason, and were closed to legal analysis and amendment. For the great majority, ritualistic matters were the primary focus of
bid‘a;
for many others, belief and ritual were its sole domain.

Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr was among those who held that
bid‘a
was strictly ritualis- tic: ‘‘As for making innovations in the practical workings of this world, no constriction and no fault pertains to one who does so.’’
42
Technological progress, crafts, building projects, urban development, and the like lay, according to this view, totally beyond the purview of
bid‘a.
Dissenting scholars who included mundane affairs under the rubric of
bid‘a
applied it only to appalling innovations that encroached scandalously upon central precepts of the law like unjust taxation (
maks
), nepotism, administrative corruption, and hanging pictures of judges and rulers in public places, which all scholars, regardless of how they conceived of
bid‘a,
agreed were forbidden.
43

10
Voices of Change

Given the nuances of
bid‘a,
classical Islamic jurisprudence evaluated it according to the fi ethical categories of the religious law: obligatory, recommended, neutral, disliked, and forbidden. Thus, the gamut ran from obligatory
bid‘a
to forbidden. Any
bid‘a
that fell into one of the first three categories was regarded as consistent with the precepts and general principles of Islam.
44
Ibn Hajar wrote: ‘‘Put precisely, if a
bid‘a
comes under the rubric of things regarded as good in the law, it is good. If it comes under the rubric of things ill-regarded in the law, it is ill-regarded. Otherwise, it belongs to the category of neutral things, and [in general] [
bid‘a
] may

be divided into the fi [ethical] divisions.’’
45
Today, these nuances of

bid‘a
have been largely forgotten. For many Muslims, the word is a red flag, invariably designating extreme religious error beyond any possibility of dispassionate discussion. In such cases, it has become a narrowly parochial force of polarization, obsessively opinionated and devoid of critical depth or scholarly protocol.

COUNTERBALANCING
BID‘A
WITH
IJTIHAD

The concept of
bid‘a
was classifi and judgmental. Though it had positive nuances and was not intended to rule out new ideas, it clearly served as a control mechanism and put ideas on trial, exonerating some and disap- proving others. Its fundamental conception was conservative and potentially inhibiting. The criteria of
bid‘a
imposed a restrictive frame on creative ideas to ensure continuity with tradition and conformity with legal principle. It must be stressed, however, that setting clear parameters does not necessarily encumber creativity and may even facilitate it. Such demarcation of parameters with the purpose of simultaneously facilitating and directing creative thought was clearly central to the original concept of
bid‘a.

The positive potential of
bid‘a
as a control mechanism was reinforced by the intellectual process of
ijtihad,
which served as a complement to the notion of
bid‘a
but greatly overshadowed it in legal prominence. By nature,
ijtihad
was encouraging, forward looking, and creative. Unlike
bid‘a, ijtihad
was neither judgmental nor classificatory but constituted a methodological process of judgment. The fi results of its diverse procedures of ‘‘utmost intellectual inquiry’’ were ultimately subject to the scrutiny of the
bid‘a– Sunna
paradigm and its corollaries, which determined whether the resulting judgments of
ijtihad
were consistent with the Prophetic tradition or not.

Al-Baji, a traditional Sunni jurist, defi ed
ijtihad
as ‘‘expending one’s fullest [intellectual] capacity in search for the right ruling.’’
46
The art of
ijtihad
required ‘‘utmost scholarly exertion on the part of the individual jurisconsult with a view to arriving at a personal opinion’’ regarding a new matter of legal concern.
47
Bernard G. Weiss notes: ‘‘The law was not some- thing to be passively received and applied; it was rather something to be

Creativity, Innovation, and Heresy in Islam
11

actively constructed by human toilers eager to gain the approval of their Lord for their effort.’’
48

Ijtihad
derives from the same root as
jihad.
Their common radical,
JHD
, denotes expending extreme effort to achieve a diffi lt but worthy goal or to overcome a great obstacle for the sake of something good. Although
jihad
clearly applies to armed struggle and brings war immediately to mind, the word constitutes a central principle of Islamic ethics.
Jihad
epitomizes faith as active engagement in the world to make it better. Its high point is the inner struggle for discipline and self-knowledge, but it also covers an unlimited array of personal and group efforts as disparate as childbirth, earning a livelihood, getting an education, taking care of family, helping others, and striving for social justice.