Book Review: Tarikh al-Fiqh al-Islami (3)

 

         4.  The fourth is from the beginning of 2^nd century until middle of 4^th century (around 723 AD-972 AD).

This era also called with the maturity of thinking, era of power (in the term of knowledge), the era of absolute mujtahid. In this era, written the science of quran (ulumul quran), hadist and ulumul hadis (science of hadits), kalam, arabic language, fiqh, and many things, including medicine, chemistry, and astronomy. In this era born at least 13 eminent islamic scholars who are famous, and 4 of them have many followers until now. These 13 figures are, Sufyan ibnu Uyaynah from Makkah, Malik bin Anas from Madinah, Hasan al-Bashri from Bashrah, Abu Hanifah and Sufyan ats-Tsauri from Kufah, al-Auza’i from Syam, Syafi’i and Laits bin Saad from Egypt, Ishaq bin Rahawiyah from Naisabur, Abu Tsaur, Ahmad, Daud adz-Dzahiri, and Ibnu Jarir from Baghdad.

There are factors that playing role in shaping this era, which are, the help of khalifah, the freedom of thinking, many debates, many and different realities, the meet of other science and culture from many places, and the process of writing the knowledge. Detail of the factors is described in the book. In this chapter, the writer also detailing many figures, such as the four Imam (Hanafi, Malik, Syafi’i and Hanbali), their apprentice, and their school of thought/ madzhab.

5. The fifth is from the middle of 4^th century until the fall of Baghdad 656 H (around 972 AD-1258 AD).

In this era, islam territory had been divided into several regions with each regions claim to be the leader of muslim and undermining the other. Fitnah (discord and feud) between muslim is inevitable. For example, the clash between Abbasiyah (Abbasid) VS Fatimid dynasty, Seljuk dynasty VS Buwaihi dynasty, Ayubiyah dynasty VS Fatimid, etc, and then come the crusade with the big war. All this factor, affect the academic environment in that era, and make it from powerful to powerless academically. In fact, after the death of Imam Ibnu Jarir at-Tabari (310 H), there are no figures that reach the level of absolute mujtahid like the four Imam we mentioned before. With that, come fanatism/ taasshub in madhzab and taqlid (following their imam blindly).  

Even though there are no mujtadih mustaqil (absolut mujtahid) in this era, several contributions have been made trough this period of time, namely, ta’lil al-ahkam (looking for the reason behind the law), tarjih (choosing the strongest opinion between ijtihad), and the spreading of madzhab.

6. The sixth is from the fall of Baghdad until now (around 1258 AD- now).

Syekh Ali Sais divided this era into two categories, first, until early 10^th century oh Hijriyah (around 1532 AD) with the figures such as Khalil al-Maliki, as-Subky, ar-Ramly, as-Suyuthi, and the second is the years after that which also described by Ali Sais as an era of taqlid, and even worse, it is not taqlid to the 3dh or 4^th era, but rather to the scholar in as-Subky and ar-Ramly’s era. In this chapter, Ali sais also detailing several scholars in this era, such as an-Nawawi, as-Subky, Zakariya al-Anshari, Ibnu Taymiyah, Ibnu Qayyim, etc.

There are several advantages and disadvantages oh this book according to myself:

1. This book is simple and easy to understood. It is suitable for one who want to understand the history of Islamic law with basic knowledge of Arabic.
2. This book is written as a handbook for early year college student and comprehensive enough as an introduction to history of Islamic law.
3. 
   As far as we know, this e-book is legal as it is can be downloaded at the trusted site such as https://www.noor-book.com/.

As for the disadvantages are:

1.      Several typos in the writing.

2.      There are no footnotes or body-notes in this book. Nevertheless, the writer put the important references in the back page.

Location:

Share :