Islaamic Shariah rules of elucidation and
interpretation!
By: Shahid Bin Waheed شاهد
بن وحيد
بسم
الله الرحمن
الرحيم
الحمدلله
رب العالمين
والصلوة
والسلام على اشرف
الانبياء
وسيدالمرسلين
نبينا محمد صل
ا لله عليه
وعلى آله
واصحابه
وازواجه
اجمعين -
امابعد
All the praises and thanks be
to Allaah, Sustainer of the Universe, and blessing and salutation to be the
most distinguish of the Messengers and foremost among the Prophets, our Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of
Allaah be on him and on his wives, children and Companions.
Without knowing the Islaamic Shariah
rules of elucidation and interpretation, one cannot understand and/or
comprehend the true meanings of Glorious Qur'aan and Ahadeeth. If you are among
those Muslims who have no proper Islaamic education
and depends on English translation (mainly) and/or translation in any other
language, it is obvious that you may experience confusion or lack of clear
understanding. Any translation of the Glorious Qur’aan and/or Ahadeeth is the word of men according to his/her understanding. Let
me briefly state these rules hoping that it will help to eradicate any
confusion in readers’ minds.
In Islaamic
Shariah we have textual meaning, suggestive meaning, required
meaning, the obverse meaning and the rules dealing with the clash of
meanings. This continues on to the kinds of lucid words and texts i.e. (1) Obvious
(2) Contextual (3) Construed and (4) invariable and much
more.
Clash
of Texts
If obvious and contextual texts come into clash, contextual text
would be preferable; since it conveys the sense intended. In the event of a
conflict between contextual and construed texts, the latter would be preferred;
for it’s meaning is evident and admits no
interpretation. However, if invariable texts come into clash with construed
one, the former would claim preference inasmuch as the sense of the invariable
one is more emphatic than that of the construed text.
In Shariah Obscure texts is further subdivided into four classes
i.e. (1) Equivocal (2) Difficult (3) Concise and (4) The
Unknown. Let me explain very briefly to educate the readers.
- In juristic
terminology an equivocal word is one, which in spite of conveying
an obvious meaning, involves complication and ambiguity, and therefore
calls for careful consideration in its application.
- A difficult
word is one which by its mood and grammatical form does not signify what
is actually meant by it, but its meaning can be determined with the help
of something extraneous.
- A concise word is one whose grammatical form does not indicate the actual
meaning; nor is there any literal or circumstantial object of reference
that may help in apprehending such meaning. Concise words include
all those terms, which are given specific technical meaning by detaching
them from their lexical meaning.
- A mystic word
is that whose grammatical form does not signify what is actually meant by
it; nor are there any extraneous probabilities indicative of its meaning
and whose significance the law-giver has confined to His/his own
knowledge by leaving it unexplained.
Words fall under three categories according to the meanings they
are designed to convey: (1) Common (2) General (3)
Special
- A common word
is that which is designed to convey two meanings in different contexts and
serves as a substitutes for the sense it signifies, that is to say, it
sometimes conveys one meaning and sometimes the others; for instance the
word “Qura” applies to both the monthly
periods of a woman (the period of menstruation and period of cleanliness
{which are different to each other}) Another example is the word “Aedihuma” in the Qur’aanic
injunction relating to the imputation of the thief’s hands may mean either
the right hand or left hand of a person found guilty of committing the
offence of theft. Again, hand means part of human body stretching from
fingers’ tips up to the wrist as well as up to the shoulders.
- A common word
is sometimes shared by lexical and technical Shariah senses. If it is
common in lexical meaning and specific connotation of the Shariah, it must
be taken in its specific connotation. For example, the dictionary meaning
of the word “talaq”
{divorce} is to do away with bondage, whereas in the Shariah it
connotes doing away with bondage of wedlock. Thus, in the Divine decree
the above word would be taken to mean breaking matrimonial tie.
- If a common word
is shared by more than two meanings, it must on the basis of cogent
grounds, be taken only in one sense to the exclusion of others. The jurist
is supposed to determine that one particular sense by taking into
consideration all the probabilities and indications. An example of a common
word shared by two dictionary meanings is provided by the letter in
this divine injunction: {“ And do not eat of that on which Allaah’s name has not been mentioned and that is most
surely a transgression” (6:122)}. In this Ayaah is a common
word. It conveys the dictionary meanings of a conjunction as well as of
present tense. If one takes it in the sense of present tense, it would
mean prohibition of that on which Allaah’s name
has been mentioned, as mentioning the name of what is other than Allaah
amounts iniquity. If treated as a conjunction it would mean absolutely
unlawful, whether the name of what is other than Allaah is mentioned or
not. Whatever the number of senses conveyed by a common word, the
lawmaker intends only one out of those senses. If it is designed to convey
one meaning, the other meaning/s is excluded.
Sunday, April 11, 2004
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