Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
GOD’ S WAY t 175<br />
<strong>and</strong> glossed it. Their glosses were, in the main, scholastic <strong>and</strong> theoretical,<br />
new building blocks in the edifice of the sharia, but ordinary<br />
Muslims had other, more concrete concerns. In matters of<br />
contest, they had per<strong>for</strong>ce to go to the qadi <strong>for</strong> a binding judgment,<br />
but in matters of conscience, on whether this or that act was<br />
licit or not, they turned, as we might expect, to one of the ulama<br />
<strong>for</strong> guidance. The response given by a qualified alim constitutes a<br />
fatwa. It is the application of the sharia, as understood by the jurisprudent<br />
in question, to a practical matter of conduct, <strong>and</strong> those<br />
who render them have been called, with justice, “the creative mediators<br />
of the ideal <strong>and</strong> the real of the sharia.”<br />
There was one class of Muslim jurisprudents who, by their position<br />
in the great madrasas, or simply by community assent, were<br />
looked on as capable of rendering a fatwa or an in<strong>for</strong>med opinion<br />
on a matter of that law. Like rabbinic responsa, the Muslim fatwa<br />
is generally nonbinding <strong>and</strong> enjoyed only as much authority as the<br />
person issuing it. Since there is no case law in <strong>Islam</strong>, the judgments<br />
of qadis in no way constituted a precedent <strong>for</strong> future decisions nor<br />
did they extend the purview of the sharia. A fatwa, in contrast,<br />
though nonbinding <strong>and</strong> unen<strong>for</strong>ceable in the context in which it<br />
was originally delivered, had a more profound effect on the sharia.<br />
Fatwas were recorded <strong>and</strong> collected, <strong>and</strong> some—those that expressed<br />
a new interpretation of a point of law rather than a mere<br />
recitation of the appropriate scriptural <strong>and</strong> hadith texts—have<br />
constituted, no less than the conclusions reached by the academic<br />
ulama, an extension of the sharia. Indeed, the mufti has been described<br />
as holding a position on the <strong>Islam</strong>ic legal spectrum somewhere<br />
between the practice-normative qadi <strong>and</strong> the faqih or<br />
academic jurisprudent exercising his personal initiative or interpretation<br />
(ijtihad) within the walls of the madrasa.<br />
Priests <strong>and</strong> Rabbis<br />
Between Constantine <strong>and</strong> the beginning of the Re<strong>for</strong>mation,<br />
Christianity, like temple Judaism, operated within a system of dual<br />
authority symbolized by the Gospel image of the “two swords”