Shaykh GF Haddad on Yasin Dutton's book Madhab of Madina

[Ansari]

ORIGINAL ISLAM: MALIK AND THE MADHHAB OF MADINA. By Yasin Dutton. London
and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xiii + 219. ISBN10: 0-415-33813-1 .
ISBN13: 978-0-415-33813-4 (HB).

For three quarters of its pages the translation of a 9th-century
outdated anti-Shafi`i work advocating the superiority of the Maliki
School � Intisar al-Faqir al-Salik li-Tarjih Madhhab al-Imam al-Kabir
Malik by Shams al-Din al-Ra`i al-Gharnati (782-853), an obscure
Andalo-Egyptian grammarian whom Imam al-Sakhawi described as a good poet
who possessed "a sharp tongue and sharp manners" � Original Islam's
unoriginal material and real author are shanghaied by Arabic Studies
Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town Yasin Dutton (a disciple
of the Murabitun movement leader and Scottish writer `Abd al-Qadir
al-Sufi) and recast, with a provocative title, notes and prefatory
material, into an essentialist Murabitun manifesto of their
interpretation of the Maliki madhhab as the only real, "original" Islam.

Dutton prolongs his introductory murmurs against "The madhhabs today"
(p. 1-3) in the next section as well, "al-Ra`i and his Intisar" (p.
7-20) then proceeds to the translation proper, consisting in the
author's introduction and five chapters:

1. "On giving preference to Malik." This chapter � and al-Ra`i's book �
begins with a forged hadith (p. 26): "Whoever honours an `alim is
honouring Allah and His Messenger, while whoever belittles an `alim is
making light of Allah and His Messenger." Al-Ra`i goes on to say that
preferring the Shafi`i School is "mere claim and self-delusion" (p. 45).

2. "On giving preference to the Maliki madhhab" wherein (p. 72) is found
`Iyad's attribution to Ibn Mahdi the statement that "The established
sunna of the people of Madina is better than hadith" (which Dutton's
co-disciple Aisha Bewley cites as, "The Sunna of the people of Madina is
more excellent than hadith") when the correct form of his statement is,
in `Iyad's Tartib: "The older Sunna (al-sunnatu al-mutaqaddima, i.e.
before the murder of our liegelord `Uthman) of the people of Madina"
and, in Ibn `Abd al-Barr's Tamhid: "Some (min) of the Sunna of the
people of Madina is better than the hadith" � meaning, said Ibn `Abd
al-Barr, "better than the hadith we have with us in Iraq."

3. "Some points of [legal] difference with the other madhahib," with the
expected fare of insufferable anecdotes over disagreements which only
specialists are fit to address and which otherwise are the fuel of
School fanaticism.

4. "Some examples of the prejudice witnessed by the author." This
chapter of 18 pages is the mean-spirited core of the book and provides
the best clues to the suspect reasons behind its promotion. It is
written in the dhamm genre Ibn Hajar described as "how not to write" and
contains accusations of bigotry, ignorance or worse against some of the
greatest Imams in Islam and their followers.

5. "Some grammatical points where many specialists make mistakes." The
section-title should be translated as "Some lexical points," not
grammatical. This section is beyond the pale of the book and discusses
six extremely basic language mistakes that are common among non-jurists
(wudu'/wadu' etc.), to which al-Ra`i adds a rather pedantic, long
discussion of a seventh entitled "Reasons why the way many mu'adhdhins
call the adhan is kufr."

The book ends with under 30 pages of notes, a glossary, biographical
notes, a bibliography and an index. Dutton nowhere clarifies his
abbreviations, so the reader has to divine that glyphs such as "Mad. B
i.61/M i.38" refer, not to Bukhari and Muslim, but to the Mohammedia and
Beirut editions of `Iyad's Tartib al-Madarik.

Dutton's introduction rehashes the familiar themes of the Murabitun
agenda: the practice of the people of Madina is the ur-School, a point
the Ummah, in its delusion, fails to grasp: "In mainstream Sunni
consciousness, there are four equally acceptable madhhabs." The
following paragraphs twice repeat this lament of the perception of the
other Schools as "acceptable," as if Dutton were diagnosing a disease.
The School of Madina, you see, "rather than being simply one among
others, is the source of all the others madhhabs!"

One can imagine what al-Awza`i, the Kufans, Ibn Mahdi and al-Tabari
would make of such a claim, not to mention the Imams of the Successors
such as `Alqama, Masruq, al-Sha`bi, al-Hasan al-Basri, Ibn Sirin,
al-Nakha`i, al-Sikhtyani... But at least five famous historical
responses do give it short shrift: al-Layth's letter to Malik, the
latter's subsequent replies to the Caliphs who attempted to turn his
Muwatta' into law for the whole Ummah, al-Shafi`i's refutation
literature, Ibn Hazm's blunt Risala Bahira � and al-Ra`i's own epigraph,
with its luminous declaration that "You must follow the Imams of the
Religion... all of them guide to the ultimate good, So follow whomever
you love among them... All of them are equal with regard to the
obligation to follow them" (my emphasis).

The equal validity of the Schools of those al-Dhahabi named "The
Imitated Ones" (al-muqalladun) in Islam is a truism of the Salaf and
their epigones, including the Malikis who named them "all paths to
Allah" (al-Shatibi in the Muwafaqat), hence the magnum opus of their
major latter-day authority, Ibn Rushd, was Bidayat al-Mujtahid
wa-Nihayat al-Muqtasid, a comparative work. The great Tlemcenian Faqih
and Qadi Abu `Abd Allah al-Maqarri (d. 759) in his Qawa`id (rule 149)
even declared it "impermissible to demonstrate the superiority of one's
madhhab with proofs the way the specialists of variance (khilaf) do,
except for training in presenting proofs... because whoever is
well-guided in presenting proofs and reaching conclusive arguments does
not ever see the truth as being the province of a single man."

The first paragraph of Dutton's introduction is an avalanche of errors.
He describes the Muwatta' as the "final record in written form" of the
"essentials of the Islam established by the Prophet and his
Companions... inherited and transmitted as a fully functional social
pattern by the following generations." Apart from the fact that even the
Malikis themselves do not derive Malik's madhhab from the Muwatta' as
much as they do from other sources, the claim that it formed a final
record is not only historically false, but doctrinally precluded as
well. The Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, made it religion for
the Companions and Successors to travel out of Madina, ensuring that the
transmission of the essentials to posterity actually became a
decentralised and universal fact, not a local monopoly.

Dutton propounds the exclusivity of Madina as the only legitimate source
of the Religion (p. 1):

<<We refer to Islam as it was first understood and practised by those who
lived in the place where the Prophet lived, at the time he lived there
and, following him, those who lived there at the time of the Rightly
Guided Caliphs and, following them, those who lived there at the time of
the remaining Companions and of the following two generations of the
Successors and the Successors of the Successors who were praised by the
Prophet in the hadith: "The best of you are my generation, then the ones
who follow them, then the ones who follow them.">> (Emphasis mine)

But anyone can see that the hadith quoted is about the early Muslims
regardless of place. Apart from this particular tendentious
interpretation, Dutton's text is actually a turgid paraphrase of Malik's
(93-179) argument in his famous letter to his contemporary al-Layth ibn
Sa`d (94-175), whom al-Shafi`i considered stronger in fiqh than Malik
(this was also the view of Ibn al-Mubarak, Sa`id ibn Abi Ayyub, and
Yahya ibn Bukayr while al-Darawardi put al-Layth even above Rabi'a,
Malik's teacher).

Al-Layth replied with a brilliant epistle on variance in which he
reminded Malik that the Companions had differed among themselves, then
the Tabi'in with the Companions and among themselves, and so forth until
Ibn Shihab and Rabi'at al-Ra'i in Madina, who may give discrepant
answers to the same question and with whom many of the Madinans
themselves differed, including Malik. Al-Layth then listed many of the
great Companions praised by the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace,
and trusted by him and by the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, who had emigrated
out of Madina:

� in Syro-Palestine: `Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Yazid
ibn Abi Sufyan, `Amr ibn al-`As, Mu`adh ibn Jabal, Shurahbil ibn Hasana,
Abu al-Darda', Bilal ibn Rabah;
� in Egypt: Abu Dharr, al-Zubayr ibn al-`Awwam, Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas
(al-Suyuti documents 350 names in Durr al-Sahaba fi-Man Dakhala Misr min
al-S ahaba);
� in Hims alone, seventy veterans of Badr;
� in Iraq: Ibn Mas`ud, Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman, `Imran ibn al-Husayn, and
`Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Al-Layth then gave several examples in which the fatwa of the
non-Madinans showed more conformity to the first generations than the
practices (plural!) of Madina. Among those examples: the non-joining of
prayers in case of rain, unlike the fatwa of Madina; the non-receiving
of testimony with less than two male witnesses or one male and two
women, unlike the fatwa of Madina which allowed one male witness; the
disallowing of early payment of the full dowry, unlike the fatwa of
Madina wich allowed it even before death or divorce; and the strict
performance of khutba before the prayer for rain (istisqa'), unlike the
fatwa of Madina which put the prayer first, followed by the khutba.

Al-Layth's reply evidently influenced Malik in his subsequent staunch
defense of madhhab differences before the Abbasid caliphs. Malik then
formulated, as narrated by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi in al-Ruwat `an Malik,
one of the fundamental principles of Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jama`a for all
times: "Commander of the Believers! The difference of the Ulema are a
mercy from Allah Most High to this Community. Each follows whatever is
considered correct by him, each is well-guided and each seeks Allah."
Another version states that he said: "The Companions differed in the
Branches (al-furu') and split into factions (tafarraqu), and each one of
them was correct in himself." I have cited these and other testimonies
to Malik's mature defence of variance in my recent Four Imams and Their
Schools and they are the best illustration of the chasm between the real
Malik and the Murabitun's Malikism.

A fundamental misinterpretation by Dutton of the contrast between the
practice of Madina and the other Schools is his blurry understanding of
Malik's phrase "This is more authentic than hadith" (p. 19). Through
Murabitun glasses, the phrase acquires absolute, supra-hadith overtones
to mean that the singular unwritten practice of the Madinans can amount
to a sunna not only without any transmitted hadith evidence, but "at
variance with a sound, authentic, impeccably narrated hadith, and even
one that [Malik] himself narrates". Dutton adduces sadl, the hanging
loose of the arms in prayer, as the supposed evidence of this method. In
reality, Malik's phrase never refers to the unqualified superiority of
practice over hadith but to the superiority of consensus to
lone-narrated hadith, a principle shared with all the Schools, just as
all the Schools agree with his teacher Rabi`a that "1,000 transmitting
from 1,000 is preferable to one transmitting from one."

In any case, the pre-eminence of mass-transmitted practice, Madinan or
non-Madinan, over non-mass-transmitted Prophetic and Companion-reports
is based on criteria not exclusive to Malik but acceptable to other
Schools as well. Thus the requisite of consensus � as implied by
al-Layth's reminder that the Prophet's city was never a monolithic fiqh
entity � shows that by Madinan practice we really mean that particular
practice which mustered consensus among many Madinan practices, since
"Malik himself," as the great Qadi Abu al-Walid al-Baji said in Ihkam
al-Fusul fi Ahkam al-Fusul, "in numerous matters contravened the
positions of the People of Madina."

As for the ruling of sadl related from Malik, he himself nowhere
stipulates that it is based on Madinan practice. Indeed, the notable
Maliki arguments in its defense � by al-Mahdi al-Wazzani, Muhammad
al-Khadir al-Shinqiti and Mukhtar al-Dawudi among others � are
hadith-grounded. Furthermore, another reliable narration from Malik
states that he held it Sunna that the hands be grasped (qabd), right
hand on top of left hand, or left wrist, or left forearm. This is
related from Malik by Mutarrif and Ibn al-Majishun in the Wadiha and is
the position of al-Lakhmi, Ibn `Abd al-Barr, Ibn al-`Arabi, Ibn Rushd in
the Muqaddimat, `Iyad � who considers it the Maliki Jumhur position in
his Ikmal � and others, in line with the totality of the Madhahib
including the three Schools, Sufyan al-Thawri, Ishaq ibn Rahawayah, Abu
Thawr, Dawud al-Z.ahiri, and al-Tabari. Qabd is the correct Maliki
stance according to Ibn `Azzuz al-Tunisi, Muhammad al-Masnawi, Muhammad
ibn Ja`far al-Kattani, his student Ahmad al-Ghumari, Muhammad
al-`Imrani, Ibn Abi Madyan al-Shinqiti, and other Maliki authorities. A
third fatwa of Imam Malik � narrated by Ibn Nafi` and Ibn al-Majishun �
stipulates indifference (ibaha) in either case.

Dutton's Malikism is a utopia of unproblematic sunna nomenclature in a
world menaced by two hobgoblins straight from Orientalist constructs (p.
17-18): "the Iraqis' penchant for exercising qiyas (analogy) to arrive
at new judgments in the absence of sufficient material in their existing
textual sources" on the one hand and, in contrast to this alleged
under-reliance, al-Shafi`i's over-reliance on hadith, "subtly chang[ing]
the way that this sunna was to be understood... In other words, if one
has an authentic hadith, then that is what one has to follow." Even
worse, al-Shafi`i changed the definition of ijma` away from its Madinan
denotation to a universal one (p. 18):

<<Al-Shafi`i was also instrumental in a second redefinition.... Whereas
the Madinans had recognised an ijma` of the people of Madina as
authoritative, al-Shafi`i's ijma` was to be an ijma` of all the Muslims
� or, at least, all the learned ones among them [a typically Orientalist
aside, since the Qur'an, Hadiths and Salaf before al-Shafi`i and Wael
Hallaq were born had already codified that the paradigmatic Congregation
are its mujtahid scholars, as confirmed by the Maliki al-Wansharisi in
his Mi`yar]. In other words, the idea of a "local" ijma`... was rejected
and a universal concept substituted.>>

In reality, not only are the first foundations of Malik's School the
Qur'an and the Sunna including Hadith (and not only Madinan practice!
"The claim that we do not accept reports except those accompanied by
Madinan practice is ignorance or a lie," said `Iyad) but also:

(a) when Hadith provides stronger evidence than Malik's madhhab, the
Malikis themselves leave the madhhab and follow the evidence. Such is
the method of Ibn `Abd al-Barr in the Tamhid, Ibn al-`Arabi in Ahkam
al-Qur'an, Ibn Rushd the Grandfather in the Muqaddimat and al-Bayan
wal-Tahsil, Ibn Rushd the Grandson in Bidayat al-Mujtahid, Ibn Abi Jamra
in Bahjat al-Nufus, and others among the major Maliki jurists;

(b) The point made by al-Shafi`i is irrefutable lexically and
doctrinally, namely that, "When I saw that Malik meant by the statement
'this is Sunna' the Sunna of the people of Madina, I refrained from
accepting that," since, al-Subki explained in al-Ibhaj, "such a
statement, at face value, must mean the Sunna of the Messenger of Allah,
upon him blessings and peace, as long as there is no proof that what is
meant is the Sunna of a country or some other meaning." To call this "a
subtle change in the way this sunna is understood" shows ignorance of
the Prophet's own usage, upon him blessings and peace. Moreover,
al-Shafi`i never stopped valuing, in his arguments, such expressions as
"the learned among the Madinans," "those I trust among the Madinans,"
"the people of fatwa among the Madinans" etc.

(c) When qiyas and lone-narrated hadith clash, most of the Malikis give
precedence to qiyas and this is Malik's position as stated by al-Qarafi
in Tanqih al-Fusul fil-Usul, Ibn al-Qassar, and others. Such a
"penchant," then, does not hinge on any purported "absence of sufficient
material in their existing textual sources!"

(d) The consensus of the world's regions (ijma` al-amsar) is a
conclusive proof in Malik's madhhab as stated at the very beginning of
the Maliki Qadi of Baghdad Ibn al-Qassar's (d. 398) Muqaddima fi Usul
al-Fiqh, and this is also agreed upon in the other Schools. As for the
preponderance of the consensus of the Madinans, al-Shafi`i never
rejected its canonicity since he says in the Risala (�1557): "What
musters agreement in al-Madina is stronger than isolated reports." This
preference (tarjih) is reiterated on his behalf by al-Zarkashi in
al-Bahr al-Muhit. Indeed, the shared position of the Three Schools is
the preponderance of pre-fitna Madinan practice � as related above from
Ibn Mahdi and as narrated by Ibn `Abd al-A`la from al-Shafi`i in Egypt.
Namely, what Malik specifically refers to as "having always been the
scholarly practice since the beginning in Madina" (al-ladhi lam yazal
`alayhi ahl al-`ilmi bi-baladina).

Al-Shafi`i only rejected the exclusivity of such ijma`, hence the
misunderstanding `Iyad attributes to al-Ghazali and al-Sayrafi, who "say
that Malik says that it is only the consensus of the people of Madina
and not that of any others that should be considered, whereas this is
something that neither Malik nor any of his companions would ever have
said."

Furthermore, `Iyad said that even the Malikis did not consider such
consensus a proof when it stemmed from intellectual striving (ijtihad)
and inference (istidlal).

Dutton mistranslates al-Ra`i's title as "Help for the Needy Traveller in
Giving Preference to the Great Imam Malik" when the correct meaning is
"Help from the Needy Traveller," a reference to the author himself, who
did not say nusrat, which would have had transitive force, but intisar,
which is reflexive, so that the title is literally: "This Travelling
Pauper's Support of the Argument for the Superiority of the School of
the Great Imam Malik."

GF Haddad

[Abdassamad Clarke]

In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful, and may Allah bless the Messenger of Allah and his family and companions and grant them peace.

It is necessary to append a small note to this review of what is for me and others a long-awaited book from Dr Yasin Dutton.

First, the scholarly points of the author of this review Dr Gibril Haddad ought, of course, to be dealt with properly one by one, and it is not my purpose to do that here.

However, a persistent note sounds in this article which is of a somewhat strident personal nature. The background to that is a previous occurrence which it appears Dr Haddad is not able or willing to leave behind him, and which mars what ought to be a careful critical take on this book.

When another author, Umar Vadillo, in his lengthy opus The Esoteric Deviation in Islam, wrote something on Dr Haddad's own master, Shaykh Nazim, Dr Haddad responded with the most appalling personal attack on Umar Vadillo, Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi and the Murabitun in their entirety. There is no other way to characterise that essay other than an act of 'revenge'. Now that might be understandable in the hills and among the uneducated but it is not the way of scholars. Moreover, and damningly, Dr Haddad did almost nothing to answer the original criticisms of Shaykh Nazim.

It is quite clear from troubling asides and the tone of this review that the old wound has not healed, and this skews Dr Haddad's otherwise apparently erudite work.

It is not unknown in Islam, for there to develop animosities between scholars, but the people of Islam have to ignore what otherwise learned men say when it descends to attacks of a personal nature.

There is a weakness in the review which is a characteristic of the writing of Dr Haddad in that, although he names lists of authorities who agree with him on various points, he rarely cites their actual words or where they are to be found so that we have to take these points on trust.

Nevertheless, there is a great deal of material in this review that ought to be answered carefully and at some length, and we await that response with interest.

As-salamu alaikum,



Abdassamad Clarke

[Ibn_Abi_Yala]

al-Salamu 'Alaikum,

I haven't seen the book Yasin Dutton published, so I can't check GF Haddad's critical remarks. Though Haddad may be motivated by personal 'revenge', as you formulate it, I doubt that he misjudged some crucial notions of Dutton concerning the Maliki Madhhab in general and its relation with other Madhhab's.

Duttin's book The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence, which is also about the Maliki Madhhab, contains a sense of blind prejudice too: for the Malikites. His preconceived notions concerning certain terms Malik used, Usul terms like 'sunnah' etc. made him fail to perceive in a well balanced manner what is sound concerning the early Islamic jurisprudential history. He has been reproached for this even by co-orientalists. So in this sense, every person who noticed Dutton's preconceived ideas about Malik, the Madinian Madhhab, 'Amal, Sunnah and so forth, and his views concerning al-Shafi'i and his place in Islamic jurisprudence - wherein Dutton seems to rely on the incorrect, rather false, notions of Schachtian scholarship, would make noise; not just Haddad who may harbor a personal grudge against certain Malikite(s) or modern movements.

wa-Salam.

[Abdassamad Clarke]

al-Salamu 'Alaikum,

I haven't seen the book Yasin Dutton published, so I can't check GF Haddad's critical remarks. Though Haddad may be motivated by personal 'revenge', as you formulate it, I doubt that he misjudged some crucial notions of Dutton concerning the Maliki Madhhab in general and its relation with other Madhhab's.

Duttin's book The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence, which is also about the Maliki Madhhab, contains a sense of blind prejudice too: for the Malikites. His preconceived notions concerning certain terms Malik used, Usul terms like 'sunnah' etc. made him fail to perceive in a well balanced manner what is sound concerning the early Islamic jurisprudential history. He has been reproached for this even by co-orientalists. So in this sense, every person who noticed Dutton's preconceived ideas about Malik, the Madinian Madhhab, 'Amal, Sunnah and so forth, and his views concerning al-Shafi'i and his place in Islamic jurisprudence - wherein Dutton seems to rely on the incorrect, rather false, notions of Schachtian scholarship, would make noise; not just Haddad who may harbor a personal grudge against certain Malikite(s) or modern movements.

wa-Salam.

Wa alaikum as-salam,

You confuse personal vendetta and scholarship.

Dr Dutton's books are Maliki and that is his position. Dr Haddad has a disparaging and snide tone, which, to those of us have some experience of academia is redolent of the way in which debate is conducted sometimes in that realm. Muslim discourse is a different matter, and even when heated it ordinarily does not become personal. It is not only when treating the Murabitun, his bete noir, that Dr Haddad writes in this fashion. I have been honoured to see one of the Shaykhs of the Sunnah's rebuttal of an article written by Dr Haddad on the Ghumari scholars, and although the author is heated and makes no pretence to the much disputed idea of objectivity, yet he never drops an impeccable adab. Something that cannot be said of Dr Haddad.

Dr Dutton's work is commitedly Maliki but in the first work on the Origins of Islamic Law I cannot remember a single disrespectful word for any of the ulama of any madhhab, and I still retain great admiration for his achievement in that book.

You disagree with Dr Dutton, but then take the time to write the refutation that is so lacking. An argument stands until someone clearly corrects it, with evidence. You regard it as Schachtian, but in truth it was another significant nail in Schacht's coffin.

As-salamu alaikum,


Abdassamad Clarke

[Ibn_Abi_Yala]

al-Salamu 'Alaikum,

I don't know the exact details of any personal vendetta, at least not between Yasin Dutton and GF Haddad. That's one thing. Yes, I'm aware of the latter's criticism directed against certain Malikites which call themselves Murabit&#251;n (and you, sir, know who I mean as I believe you are part of that movement, right?). And Dutton seems to be part of that movement, as some of his writings indicate.

But whatever Haddad's personal problems, the point I made in response to your post was the undeniable prejudice or call it bias of Dutton. Haddad may have problems with the Murabitun as a whole, even on a personal level with Dutton (which is absent, right?), he is right in some points with respect to Dutton's thesis concerning Imam Malik and his Madhhab. This is what I wanted to stress and it is my sole objective in answering.

Surely, I'm not defending the 'tone' of Haddad or even many of his prejudiced, biased and absurd beliefs and statements which I have noticed and pointed out - as many can tell about me, especially in this forum. You might have remembered some of my statements in the Bewley group in the past, especially concerning the subject of 'Aqidah. So the last person I would defend in terms of contents, for I disagree with these people, is Haddad; let alone his 'tone'!

I'm aware of Haddad's sometimes disparaging and snide tone, as his articles are proof of it. Many are guilty of that, be they active as non-Muslim academics or as Muslim academics or not as academics at all. Not every disparagement is however on a personal level, some can be judged academically. Especially when the theses some academics propose contain grave mistakes, misunderstandings or misinterpretations that are called for such remarks. Now, I'm not saying that Dutton is guilty of that which would justify 'personal' disparagements and a snide tone - as you described it - but certainly, Haddad and others, disagree with the thesis Dutton advocates in his writings.

And this is why I responded. Surely, I say again, Haddad may be guilty of uncalled statements and a snide tone, this does not make his criticism wrong. But for the record: could you please indicate where Haddad is guilty of that what you accuse him off in this review of him? I have seen maybe one or two passages which could agree with your interpretation, but could you emphasize them?

And please, could you first inform the public in what way Haddad is mistaken when referring to several scholars of the past when argueing against Dutton's thesis? You say I disagree with Dutton, so I should take the time to write a refutation which is lacking; how come you passed so easily in producing a refutation, a scholarly one absent of everything that may be judged 'personal', of those arguments Haddad brought forth, before requesting one from me?

I would rather have seen a critique of yours, against some of the points Haddad mentioned, so that your initial response is not another 'personal' coloured defense which has no baring at all to the contents. If you have no intention at all of writing something like that, I will ask you Insha'Allah some questions concerning Dutton's thesis which have perplexed not just me but others as well.

Let me correct something:

I do not regard the whole thesis of Dutton as Schachtian at all, on the contrary. Many times Dutton criticizes Schachtian ideas. But one can not fail to see the presence of some Schachtian ideas or traces of it, particularly when speaking about al-Shafi'i's role in Islamic jurisprudence and the meanings of certain expressions such as 'Sunnah'. The 'textual' vs living tradition in Dutton's writings, for example, is also recurrent of Schacht's ideas about the development of Fiqh in the second half of the second century.

One who went extreme in this, as a Muslim, is none other than the author of Root Islamic Education or something alike (don't remember the exact title). Could you inform us, forgot his name, who the author is of this work and what his background is? This writer - who shares with Dutton certain ideas about what authentic Sunnah is, the tradition of writing, 'literal or textual Islam', 'institutional Islam' etc. - has even more evident 'Schachtian' ideas, such that I was susprised that he even 'attacked' the Hadith Science-tradition, a tradition of which Imam Malik is a particular representative of!

Understand me, I believe Dutton has some good ideas and in general the book The Origins of Islamic Law (not Jurisprudence, as I mistakenly said) is a good read. It was I who cited some of it at Bewley groups when people asked questions about it, and I would not have made a few passages public if I found them Schachtian at all. If there is an orientalist academic whom I disagree most, then it is Joseph Schacht and all those 'blind followers' of his among non-Muslim and (suprisingly) many 'Muslims'. But this should not destract us from - what I believe - the msitakes Dutton made or things he argued for which deemed by me to be incorrect. Neither should Haddad's alleged tone distract us from that, let alone his disparagement of certain movements of members of that.

This is what I wanted to say.

wa-Salamu 'Alaikum wa-Rahmatullah,

Moulay Abdallah al-Ghuzayli

[Sad ibn Abu Waqqas]

I found this on Shaykh Gibril Haddad's personal group "Sunna-Principles", and thought it would be of interest to Malikis here, as well as anyone concerned with the arguments of the Murabitun.



Richard



ORIGINAL ISLAM: MALIK AND THE MADHHAB OF MADINA. By Yasin Dutton. London
and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xiii + 219. ISBN10: 0-415-33813-1.
ISBN13: 978-0-415-33813-4 (HB).

For three quarters of its pages the translation of a 9th-century
outdated anti-Shafi`i work advocating the superiority of the Maliki
School – Intisar al-Faqir al-Salik li-Tarjih Madhhab al-Imam al-Kabir
Malik by Shams al-Din al-Ra`i al-Gharnati (782-853), an obscure
Andalo-Egyptian grammarian whom Imam al-Sakhawi described as a good poet
who possessed "a sharp tongue and sharp manners" – Original Islam's
unoriginal material and real author are shanghaied by Arabic Studies
Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town Yasin Dutton (a disciple
of the Murabitun movement leader and Scottish writer `Abd al-Qadir
al-Sufi) and recast, with a provocative title, notes and prefatory
material, into an essentialist Murabitun manifesto of their
interpretation of the Maliki madhhab as the only real, "original" Islam.

Dutton prolongs his introductory murmurs against "The madhhabs today"
(p. 1-3) in the next section as well, "al-Ra`i and his Intisar" (p.
7-20) then proceeds to the translation proper, consisting in the
author's introduction and five chapters:

1. "On giving preference to Malik." This chapter – and al-Ra`i's book –
begins with a forged hadith (p. 26): "Whoever honours an `alim is
honouring Allah and His Messenger, while whoever belittles an `alim is
making light of Allah and His Messenger." Al-Ra`i goes on to say that
preferring the Shafi`i School is "mere claim and self-delusion" (p. 45).

2. "On giving preference to the Maliki madhhab" wherein (p. 72) is found
`Iyad's attribution to Ibn Mahdi the statement that "The established
sunna of the people of Madina is better than hadith" (which Dutton's
co-disciple Aisha Bewley cites as, "The Sunna of the people of Madina is
more excellent than hadith") when the correct form of his statement is,
in `Iyad's Tartib: "The older Sunna (al-sunnatu al-mutaqaddima, i.e.
before the murder of our liegelord `Uthman) of the people of Madina"
and, in Ibn `Abd al-Barr's Tamhid: "Some (min) of the Sunna of the
people of Madina is better than the hadith" – meaning, said Ibn `Abd
al-Barr, "better than the hadith we have with us in Iraq."

3. "Some points of [legal] difference with the other madhahib," with the
expected fare of insufferable anecdotes over disagreements which only
specialists are fit to address and which otherwise are the fuel of
School fanaticism.

4. "Some examples of the prejudice witnessed by the author." This
chapter of 18 pages is the mean-spirited core of the book and provides
the best clues to the suspect reasons behind its promotion. It is
written in the dhamm genre Ibn Hajar described as "how not to write" and
contains accusations of bigotry, ignorance or worse against some of the
greatest Imams in Islam and their followers.

5. "Some grammatical points where many specialists make mistakes." The
section-title should be translated as "Some lexical points," not
grammatical. This section is beyond the pale of the book and discusses
six extremely basic language mistakes that are common among non-jurists
(wudu'/wadu' etc.), to which al-Ra`i adds a rather pedantic, long
discussion of a seventh entitled "Reasons why the way many mu'adhdhins
call the adhan is kufr."

The book ends with under 30 pages of notes, a glossary, biographical
notes, a bibliography and an index. Dutton nowhere clarifies his
abbreviations, so the reader has to divine that glyphs such as "Mad. B
i.61/M i.38" refer, not to Bukhari and Muslim, but to the Mohammedia and
Beirut editions of `Iyad's Tartib al-Madarik.

Dutton's introduction rehashes the familiar themes of the Murabitun
agenda: the practice of the people of Madina is the ur-School, a point
the Ummah, in its delusion, fails to grasp: "In mainstream Sunni
consciousness, there are four equally acceptable madhhabs." The
following paragraphs twice repeat this lament of the perception of the
other Schools as "acceptable," as if Dutton were diagnosing a disease.
The School of Madina, you see, "rather than being simply one among
others, is the source of all the others madhhabs!"

One can imagine what al-Awza`i, the Kufans, Ibn Mahdi and al-Tabari
would make of such a claim, not to mention the Imams of the Successors
such as `Alqama, Masruq, al-Sha`bi, al-Hasan al-Basri, Ibn Sirin,
al-Nakha`i, al-Sikhtyani... But at least five famous historical
responses do give it short shrift: al-Layth's letter to Malik, the
latter's subsequent replies to the Caliphs who attempted to turn his
Muwatta' into law for the whole Ummah, al-Shafi`i's refutation
literature, Ibn Hazm's blunt Risala Bahira – and al-Ra`i's own epigraph,
with its luminous declaration that "You must follow the Imams of the
Religion... all of them guide to the ultimate good, So follow whomever
you love among them... All of them are equal with regard to the
obligation to follow them" (my emphasis).

The equal validity of the Schools of those al-Dhahabi named "The
Imitated Ones" (al-muqalladun) in Islam is a truism of the Salaf and
their epigones, including the Malikis who named them "all paths to
Allah" (al-Shatibi in the Muwafaqat), hence the magnum opus of their
major latter-day authority, Ibn Rushd, was Bidayat al-Mujtahid
wa-Nihayat al-Muqtasid, a comparative work. The great Tlemcenian Faqih
and Qadi Abu `Abd Allah al-Maqarri (d. 759) in his Qawa`id (rule 149)
even declared it "impermissible to demonstrate the superiority of one's
madhhab with proofs the way the specialists of variance (khilaf) do,
except for training in presenting proofs... because whoever is
well-guided in presenting proofs and reaching conclusive arguments does
not ever see the truth as being the province of a single man."

The first paragraph of Dutton's introduction is an avalanche of errors.
He describes the Muwatta' as the "final record in written form" of the
"essentials of the Islam established by the Prophet and his
Companions... inherited and transmitted as a fully functional social
pattern by the following generations." Apart from the fact that even the
Malikis themselves do not derive Malik's madhhab from the Muwatta' as
much as they do from other sources, the claim that it formed a final
record is not only historically false, but doctrinally precluded as
well. The Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, made it religion for
the Companions and Successors to travel out of Madina, ensuring that the
transmission of the essentials to posterity actually became a
decentralised and universal fact, not a local monopoly.

Dutton propounds the exclusivity of Madina as the only legitimate source
of the Religion (p. 1):

<<We refer to Islam as it was first understood and practised by those who
lived in the place where the Prophet lived, at the time he lived there
and, following him, those who lived there at the time of the Rightly
Guided Caliphs and, following them, those who lived there at the time of
the remaining Companions and of the following two generations of the
Successors and the Successors of the Successors who were praised by the
Prophet in the hadith: "The best of you are my generation, then the ones
who follow them, then the ones who follow them.">> (Emphasis mine)

But anyone can see that the hadith quoted is about the early Muslims
regardless of place. Apart from this particular tendentious
interpretation, Dutton's text is actually a turgid paraphrase of Malik's
(93-179) argument in his famous letter to his contemporary al-Layth ibn
Sa`d (94-175), whom al-Shafi`i considered stronger in fiqh than Malik
(this was also the view of Ibn al-Mubarak, Sa`id ibn Abi Ayyub, and
Yahya ibn Bukayr while al-Darawardi put al-Layth even above Rabi'a,
Malik's teacher).

Al-Layth replied with a brilliant epistle on variance in which he
reminded Malik that the Companions had differed among themselves, then
the Tabi'in with the Companions and among themselves, and so forth until
Ibn Shihab and Rabi'at al-Ra'i in Madina, who may give discrepant
answers to the same question and with whom many of the Madinans
themselves differed, including Malik. Al-Layth then listed many of the
great Companions praised by the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace,
and trusted by him and by the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, who had emigrated
out of Madina:

– in Syro-Palestine: `Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Yazid
ibn Abi Sufyan, `Amr ibn al-`As, Mu`adh ibn Jabal, Shurahbil ibn Hasana,
Abu al-Darda', Bilal ibn Rabah;
– in Egypt: Abu Dharr, al-Zubayr ibn al-`Awwam, Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas
(al-Suyuti documents 350 names in Durr al-Sahaba fi-Man Dakhala Misr min
al-S ahaba);
– in Hims alone, seventy veterans of Badr;
– in Iraq: Ibn Mas`ud, Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman, `Imran ibn al-Husayn, and
`Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Al-Layth then gave several examples in which the fatwa of the
non-Madinans showed more conformity to the first generations than the
practices (plural!) of Madina. Among those examples: the non-joining of
prayers in case of rain, unlike the fatwa of Madina; the non-receiving
of testimony with less than two male witnesses or one male and two
women, unlike the fatwa of Madina which allowed one male witness; the
disallowing of early payment of the full dowry, unlike the fatwa of
Madina wich allowed it even before death or divorce; and the strict
performance of khutba before the prayer for rain (istisqa'), unlike the
fatwa of Madina which put the prayer first, followed by the khutba.

Al-Layth's reply evidently influenced Malik in his subsequent staunch
defense of madhhab differences before the Abbasid caliphs. Malik then
formulated, as narrated by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi in al-Ruwat `an Malik,
one of the fundamental principles of Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jama`a for all
times: "Commander of the Believers! The difference of the Ulema are a
mercy from Allah Most High to this Community. Each follows whatever is
considered correct by him, each is well-guided and each seeks Allah."
Another version states that he said: "The Companions differed in the
Branches (al-furu') and split into factions (tafarraqu), and each one of
them was correct in himself." I have cited these and other testimonies
to Malik's mature defence of variance in my recent Four Imams and Their
Schools and they are the best illustration of the chasm between the real
Malik and the Murabitun's Malikism.

A fundamental misinterpretation by Dutton of the contrast between the
practice of Madina and the other Schools is his blurry understanding of
Malik's phrase "This is more authentic than hadith" (p. 19). Through
Murabitun glasses, the phrase acquires absolute, supra-hadith overtones
to mean that the singular unwritten practice of the Madinans can amount
to a sunna not only without any transmitted hadith evidence, but "at
variance with a sound, authentic, impeccably narrated hadith, and even
one that [Malik] himself narrates". Dutton adduces sadl, the hanging
loose of the arms in prayer, as the supposed evidence of this method. In
reality, Malik's phrase never refers to the unqualified superiority of
practice over hadith but to the superiority of consensus to
lone-narrated hadith, a principle shared with all the Schools, just as
all the Schools agree with his teacher Rabi`a that "1,000 transmitting
from 1,000 is preferable to one transmitting from one."

In any case, the pre-eminence of mass-transmitted practice, Madinan or
non-Madinan, over non-mass-transmitted Prophetic and Companion-reports
is based on criteria not exclusive to Malik but acceptable to other
Schools as well. Thus the requisite of consensus – as implied by
al-Layth's reminder that the Prophet's city was never a monolithic fiqh
entity – shows that by Madinan practice we really mean that particular
practice which mustered consensus among many Madinan practices, since
"Malik himself," as the great Qadi Abu al-Walid al-Baji said in Ihkam
al-Fusul fi Ahkam al-Fusul, "in numerous matters contravened the
positions of the People of Madina."

As for the ruling of sadl related from Malik, he himself nowhere
stipulates that it is based on Madinan practice. Indeed, the notable
Maliki arguments in its defense – by al-Mahdi al-Wazzani, Muhammad
al-Khadir al-Shinqiti and Mukhtar al-Dawudi among others – are
hadith-grounded. Furthermore, another reliable narration from Malik
states that he held it Sunna that the hands be grasped (qabd), right
hand on top of left hand, or left wrist, or left forearm. This is
related from Malik by Mutarrif and Ibn al-Majishun in the Wadiha and is
the position of al-Lakhmi, Ibn `Abd al-Barr, Ibn al-`Arabi, Ibn Rushd in
the Muqaddimat, `Iyad – who considers it the Maliki Jumhur position in
his Ikmal – and others, in line with the totality of the Madhahib
including the three Schools, Sufyan al-Thawri, Ishaq ibn Rahawayah, Abu
Thawr, Dawud al-Z.ahiri, and al-Tabari. Qabd is the correct Maliki
stance according to Ibn `Azzuz al-Tunisi, Muhammad al-Masnawi, Muhammad
ibn Ja`far al-Kattani, his student Ahmad al-Ghumari, Muhammad
al-`Imrani, Ibn Abi Madyan al-Shinqiti, and other Maliki authorities. A
third fatwa of Imam Malik – narrated by Ibn Nafi` and Ibn al-Majishun –
stipulates indifference (ibaha) in either case.

Dutton's Malikism is a utopia of unproblematic sunna nomenclature in a
world menaced by two hobgoblins straight from Orientalist constructs (p.
17-18): "the Iraqis' penchant for exercising qiyas (analogy) to arrive
at new judgments in the absence of sufficient material in their existing
textual sources" on the one hand and, in contrast to this alleged
under-reliance, al-Shafi`i's over-reliance on hadith, "subtly chang[ing]
the way that this sunna was to be understood... In other words, if one
has an authentic hadith, then that is what one has to follow." Even
worse, al-Shafi`i changed the definition of ijma` away from its Madinan
denotation to a universal one (p. 18):

<<Al-Shafi`i was also instrumental in a second redefinition.... Whereas
the Madinans had recognised an ijma` of the people of Madina as
authoritative, al-Shafi`i's ijma` was to be an ijma` of all the Muslims
– or, at least, all the learned ones among them [a typically Orientalist
aside, since the Qur'an, Hadiths and Salaf before al-Shafi`i and Wael
Hallaq were born had already codified that the paradigmatic Congregation
are its mujtahid scholars, as confirmed by the Maliki al-Wansharisi in
his Mi`yar]. In other words, the idea of a "local" ijma`... was rejected
and a universal concept substituted.>>

In reality, not only are the first foundations of Malik's School the
Qur'an and the Sunna including Hadith (and not only Madinan practice!
"The claim that we do not accept reports except those accompanied by
Madinan practice is ignorance or a lie," said `Iyad) but also:

(a) when Hadith provides stronger evidence than Malik's madhhab, the
Malikis themselves leave the madhhab and follow the evidence. Such is
the method of Ibn `Abd al-Barr in the Tamhid, Ibn al-`Arabi in Ahkam
al-Qur'an, Ibn Rushd the Grandfather in the Muqaddimat and al-Bayan
wal-Tahsil, Ibn Rushd the Grandson in Bidayat al-Mujtahid, Ibn Abi Jamra
in Bahjat al-Nufus, and others among the major Maliki jurists;

(b) The point made by al-Shafi`i is irrefutable lexically and
doctrinally, namely that, "When I saw that Malik meant by the statement
'this is Sunna' the Sunna of the people of Madina, I refrained from
accepting that," since, al-Subki explained in al-Ibhaj, "such a
statement, at face value, must mean the Sunna of the Messenger of Allah,
upon him blessings and peace, as long as there is no proof that what is
meant is the Sunna of a country or some other meaning." To call this "a
subtle change in the way this sunna is understood" shows ignorance of
the Prophet's own usage, upon him blessings and peace. Moreover,
al-Shafi`i never stopped valuing, in his arguments, such expressions as
"the learned among the Madinans," "those I trust among the Madinans,"
"the people of fatwa among the Madinans" etc.

(c) When qiyas and lone-narrated hadith clash, most of the Malikis give
precedence to qiyas and this is Malik's position as stated by al-Qarafi
in Tanqih al-Fusul fil-Usul, Ibn al-Qassar, and others. Such a
"penchant," then, does not hinge on any purported "absence of sufficient
material in their existing textual sources!"

(d) The consensus of the world's regions (ijma` al-amsar) is a
conclusive proof in Malik's madhhab as stated at the very beginning of
the Maliki Qadi of Baghdad Ibn al-Qassar's (d. 398) Muqaddima fi Usul
al-Fiqh, and this is also agreed upon in the other Schools. As for the
preponderance of the consensus of the Madinans, al-Shafi`i never
rejected its canonicity since he says in the Risala (§1557): "What
musters agreement in al-Madina is stronger than isolated reports." This
preference (tarjih) is reiterated on his behalf by al-Zarkashi in
al-Bahr al-Muhit. Indeed, the shared position of the Three Schools is
the preponderance of pre-fitna Madinan practice – as related above from
Ibn Mahdi and as narrated by Ibn `Abd al-A`la from al-Shafi`i in Egypt.
Namely, what Malik specifically refers to as "having always been the
scholarly practice since the beginning in Madina" (al-ladhi lam yazal
`alayhi ahl al-`ilmi bi-baladina).

Al-Shafi`i only rejected the exclusivity of such ijma`, hence the
misunderstanding `Iyad attributes to al-Ghazali and al-Sayrafi, who "say
that Malik says that it is only the consensus of the people of Madina
and not that of any others that should be considered, whereas this is
something that neither Malik nor any of his companions would ever have
said."

Furthermore, `Iyad said that even the Malikis did not consider such
consensus a proof when it stemmed from intellectual striving (ijtihad)
and inference (istidlal).

Dutton mistranslates al-Ra`i's title as "Help for the Needy Traveller in
Giving Preference to the Great Imam Malik" when the correct meaning is
"Help from the Needy Traveller," a reference to the author himself, who
did not say nusrat, which would have had transitive force, but intisar,
which is reflexive, so that the title is literally: "This Travelling
Pauper's Support of the Argument for the Superiority of the School of
the Great Imam Malik."

GF Haddad

[Abdassamad Clarke]

As-salamu alaikum,

My point was only that one has to be wary of allowing personal animosity enter into these matters.

The point about Dr Dutton's work is that it represents his conviction arrived at by study, and not a prejudice. For the former is backed up his evidence and arguments, and the latter is just something that people think without any evidence. Therefore, his work does not represent a bias but a reasoned argument on behalf of his convictions.

As to the Root Islamic Education argument it has been well thrashed out elsewhere on this forum, and I have not the courage or the energy to repeat it. The author of Root Islamic Education, Shaykh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi, certainly did not attack the hadith sciences, for in the edition I have of the work there is a very substantial appendix on the sciences necessary for hadith studies. No Maliki would dismiss the hadith since Imam Malik is the Amir al-Muminin in hadith as he is in fiqh.

If I was mistaken about the tone of Dr Haddad's article, then let us leave it. If you do not notice that, then don't let it impinge on your reading of the article.

I certainly did not produce a refutation of Dr Haddad's article and thought that I made that plain. Such a work will take a great deal of scholarship and a lot of work. That he does not really cite his sources makes it all the harder to do so, because for a proper reply to what he has written one has to refer to the people and the quotes to which he refers.

My main worry was that a valuable work upon which Dr Dutton has been working meticulously for a number of years, should be dismissed too easily by this review.

As-salamu alaikum,


Abdassamad Clarke

[laughinglion]

It seems in your haste to 'nail' the Murabitun you overlooked the fact that there is an ongoing discussion on this 'review' on another thread http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22985 . And please it is not Imam Malik against anyone, it is Gibril Haddad's (who's antagonism toward the Murabitun is evidenced to have clouded his better judgement at times) review of a book written by Imam Yasin Dutton.

Anyway, thanks for the publicity.

With peace

[Ibn_Abi_Yala]

al-Salamu 'Alaikum,

Thanks for your reply, brother.

I don't think anyone would dismiss a work, simply because GF Haddad reviewed it critically. I seriously doubt if any academic, Muslim or not, would consult the online writings of him in this subject.

So don't worry, none would Insha'Allah dismiss such a unique work of which a few have been published. I certainly, as a Malikite and admirer of all those followers of this Madhhab who somehow 'defended' their Manhaj against al-Shafi'i and other jurists, will not dismiss it. Works of similar nature, such as Qadi Isma'il's book and Radd on al-Shafi'i, Ibn Labbad's Radd, Ibn Abi Zayd's works etc. are too attractive than someone like Haddad or any other for that matter distracting us of them.

I also didn't say you produced a refutation. I simply noticed the fact that you didn't write one, while expressing things against Haddad's review. At the least you could adress some of his criticism, instead of requesting instantly a refutation from me. I found that a bit strange.

In any case, if you have the intention to write a critique let us all know. Surely, Haddad many times refers in passim to arguments which are difficult to trace without a proper annotation. And what's worse, sometimes the notes which should back up the arguments are worthless. And in a few instances I was even amazed by notes which argue against the writer! But let me not go further..

Surely, any book from the classical periode is worthy. And certainly, such books which are deemed important for a better understanding of Fiqh in a historical (apologetic) context are crucial. Again, don't worry about the value of it.

And this is said by someone who has never seen the book

wa-Salamu 'Alaikum wa-Rahmatullahi wa-Barakatuhu,

Moulay Abdallah al-Ghuzayli

[Sad ibn Abu Waqqas]

It seems in your haste to 'nail' the Murabitun you overlooked the fact that there is an ongoing discussion on this 'review' on another thread http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22985 . And please it is not Imam Malik against anyone, it is Gibril Haddad's (who's antagonism toward the Murabitun is evidenced to have clouded his better judgement at times) review of a book written by Imam Yasin Dutton.

Anyway, thanks for the publicity.

With peace

I was not aware of the other thread (am I expected to be aware of everything going on in these discussions?), so I posted this here.

The title "Imam Malik vs. Pseudo-Malikism" is that of Shaykh Gibril himself, and accurately expresses his conclusion concerning the Murabitun's views generally and Dutton's book in particular. Why should I make up my own title for his piece?

In my experience, Shaykh Gibril's antagonism towards the Murabitun's views is shared by many Sunni scholars.