Brief Background

The proposal of Imam Shafi’i, as suggested in his ar-Risalah, has lasted for more than a 1000 years now. Despite the heated reception of his works by his contemporaries, the later ulema found his concepts very useful in resolving conflicts, dispensing justice and enriching individual lives of their subjects.

150 years before the Mongols invaded Baghdad, al-Ghazali projected that the objectives of the Shari’ah were to preserve religion, self and progeny, reason and wealth. Coupling Kalaam with al-Shafi’i’s methodology, he had hoped to preserve the Maqaasid al-Shari’ah (Objectives of the Shari’ah).

After the Mongol conquest and colonisation of Baghdad, by 1259, it was because of the effort of the ulema like al-Ghazali that the Shari’ah was preserved. In fact, these very principles helped the Mongols see the beauty of Quran and accept Islam after a few generations.

However, during the European colonisation and the Socialist-20th century, the use of a distorted version of Imaam Shafi’s methodology in the form of Taqleed simply backfired. Due to inconsistencies, 800-years of ad-hoc ‘exceptions’ to the divine and just rules trivialised the concept of Rule of Law, ripping apart the common denominator of the Muslim society.

To the Future: from “Preserve” to “Progress”

In early 21st century, the preservation of the 1000-year-old falling edifice of the Shari’ah does not benefit anyone. So, a new approach is needed for deriving rules of Shari’ah.

We must work for the continued progress of humanity in various domains of our life: human needs, societal order, preservation of our planet, and ultimately the individual sakina and success.

So, What Should be the Aims and Rules?

1. AIMS

Deen

Spiritual fulfilment and earthy comforts, balancing the emotional and rational needs of the human brain, can be one sensible approach.

Domains of the deen – Sakina, Maghfirat, Falah, etc – will likely appeal to the whole humanity. For Muslims, the Quran remains the ultimate source of fulfilment of that vision.

Dunya is a part of the deen. However, as we begin to disagree, we need to understand the roots of that disagreement (see below).

Dunya

As to the dunya and earthly comforts, we take for granted the progress of human society since the medieval times.

Here is one model that aims harmony via individual and communal efforts.

The idea is to create a society that is ordered, where the struggle for perfection continues through one’s life. That struggle starts with an individual, and improved with processes that govern the societal systems.

Individual

Emotional/spiritual upkeep of an individual is as important as nurturing the life-long intellectual curiosity.

Here is one model suggesting the development of human needs as we mature into adulthood. Ahadeeth imply this process may take at least 40 years, if not more. So let us be patient with each other.

2. RULES: the process of deriving rules

The rules of any civilised existence aims to resolve a ‘disagreement’ by understanding human ‘bias’, thus mitigating individual ‘blame’ and wider ‘conflict’.

Disagreement

The aim of any argument or disagreement must be to reach the truth.

All too often, we do not realise how we are arguing on. We know the why and the what we are arguing about.

Below is the cascade of the how – reflecting both the tone and the concept: the “descent of debate” and the “descent of disagreement”.

 

 

 

Bias and Conflict

Ideally, the search for the truth and the dialectics should never cause conflict. It may lead to competition, and that is okay.

Politics, the use of an argument when a truth is not absolutely certain, can become a source of conflict. The first step in mitigating such a conflict is to understand Bias inherent in Human Brain, and the bias that resides within each of us.

Below is one approach to deal with conflicts of material and morality:

Blame

It is easy to blame others, and life to move on. However, for human progress to continue, the aim of one’s life should be to resolve contradictions – in the domain of one’s preference.

Surely, spiritually, a fulfilling activity is to find solutions, rather than blaming others.

Here is a visual Blame-Scale:

Now let us find some solutions.

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