Name: Sohrab Raza ERP: 21567 Class: 2466

SEPI FINAL EXAM

PART 1

1.Based on the readings on Qur’an interpretation by Imam Ibn Taymiyya,

Qurtubi and Ghazali, explain what is the valid method of interpreting the
Qur’an? What are the reliable and unreliable sources of doing tafsir?What
is the ruling of doing tafsir using Israiliyyat (narrations that have reached us
through the Jews and Christians)? What is the ruling of doing tafisr on the
basis of personal opinion, as opposed to well-founded knowledge (ilm)?
According to Imam Qurtubi, what are the reasons for rejecting a tafsir done
on the basis of mere personal opinion?(15)

Ans) The Quran itself is the speech of Allah and isn’t very easy to be interpreted. It
wasn’t delivered all together at a single time but was sent down upon the humanity
gradually and the ayahs aren’t arranged in a proper sequence. Quran might be clear
about some of the matters of life and might be unclear or even silent about some
other matters of life. The interpretation of some ayahs (clear and directly stated
ayahs) doesn’t need detailed tafsir because the ayah itself is clear and thus conveys
the meaning well. However, for the ayahs that are unclear or have multiple
meanings require the ‘venturing beyond the text’. The valid method to do tafsir of
the Quran is on the basis of well-founded knowledge. Now what would be the
well-founded knowledge? It is basically the inner knowledge or the beneficial
knowledge of Allah. The scholars possessing this type of knowledge are the only
ones permitted to do tafsir of the Quran on the basis of that knowledge. Tafsir done
on the basis of this well-founded knowledge is reliable provided that the tafsir isn’t
done on mere personal opinion. Hence, tafsir done on mere personal opinion and
by those who do not have a good grip on the Arabic language are considered to be
unreliable.
Now as for the rulings of doing tafsir using Israiliyyat narrations, we don’t
know what they heard from the Prophet (PBUH) and how they interpreted it.
Similarly, the tafsir done on the basis of personal opinion cannot be considered
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reliable as well because the Prophet (PBUH) himself said that, “Whoever says
(something) about the Qur'an according to his own opinion and he is correct, yet he
has committed a mistake.”1 Thus, we reject these types of tafsir.
Lastly, the reasons for the rejection of a tafsir done on mere personal opinion
is that firstly this type of tafsir isn’t done on well-founded knowledge and is mostly
done by the ideologues nowadays. It is because that they do the tafsir by following
their desires and don’t even know what they’re doing. Moreover, it is really
difficult to have a good grasp on the Arabic language and the tafsir done according
to one’s whims are done by the people who misinterpret the Quranic Arabic
language. To correctly interpret the text, you need to be a master of the Arabic
language and this, hence, is the reason to reject tafsir on personal opinions.

1
For the sake of the accuracy of the Hadith I had in my mind, I had to look it up and extracted it from
https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/40532/what-is-the-meaning-of-the-hadith-about-giving-your-opinion-
about-the-quran

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2.How would you respond to those who reject following hadith/Sunna on
the basis that 1) what we are commanded to follow is simply Qur’ān, and
following the Sunna is not necessary, 2) the command to follow the Prophet
(may peace and blessings be upon him) was only meant for the Sahaba,
and not us, and 3) while the command to follow the Prophet (may peace
and blessings be upon him) is meant for all of humanity, however, the
hadiths that have reached us are not reliable and so we are not legally
obligated to follow them.4) How would you respond to those who limit
following Sunna to only sahih hadith, and discard weak hadith (dhaeef)
altogether?5)How would you respond to those who limit following Sunna to
only hadith found in Bukhari and Muslim?(15)

Ans) The people of the opinion that Allah commands us to simply follow the
Quran and following the Sunna of the Prophet (PBUH) is not necessary are
evidently wrong. If they were to follow the Quran then they would know that Allah
Himself commands us to follow His Messenger (PBUH). If Allah Himself
commands us to follow the Prophet (PBUH) then it is enough for us to believe that
we should obey him. Secondly, some people state that the Sunna was only meant
for the Sahaba and not us; well, considering that Quran, the book of Allah, is
universal and is meant for all generations and Muhammad (PBUH) was sent as an
epitome to act upon the Quran so, if it were only meant for the Sahaba then our
Prophet (PBUH) wouldn’t have addressed the coming generations in his hadith but
he did because his personification is also meant for us and helps us in our journey.
Some people might believe that we’re not obligated to follow the Hadiths
because they’ve reached us unreliably. Allah Himself says in the Quran that the
one who has obeyed the Prophet (PBUH) has obeyed Allah. Our Deen is basically
submission to Allah, to obey him, and to obey the Prophet (PBUH) is to obey
Allah. Some hadiths might seem reliable but they’re on a spectrum of Zanni-e-
Thubut. So, it’ll be bad to completely disregard them and what should be done is
that they should be followed but considered weak in terms of reliability. The
readings also mention various examples of the followers who used to act upon the
hadiths that were weak. We should test the reliability of the hadith by performing
certain steps mentioned in the readings.
I would say that following only the Sahih hadith and disregarding the
Dhaeef hadith is wrong. Just because the chain of narrators becomes weak doesn’t

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mean that the hadith is itself wrong. The author of the reading responds to this
issue by stating that the chain of narrations is weak but the text itself isn’t weak.
There might be some differences in the wordings of the narrations but that doesn’t
mean that we should completely disregard the weak hadiths. These hadiths might
become weak because of memory and actions as well but they can also be elevated
(proved reliable) in certain conditions that are: (i) if multiple independent chains of
transmission are found or (ii) if the weak hadith is used by an early jurist before the
weakness in the transmission.
The attachment on the next page explains the elevation of hadith because of the
second case through a diagram.

Lastly, the people who only follow the hadith present in Bukhari and
Muslim can be responded by stating them the fact that just because Bukhari and
Muslim have Sahih in their names doesn’t mean that every single Sahih hadith is
present there. Now we might get a counter argument that we’re making claims here
but the ones who compiled Bukhari and Muslim themselves stated that they
haven’t included all of the Sahih hadith in their book.
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3. What is ijtihad? What are the types of valid ijtihad? Can ijtihad be done
to revise the clear rulings of the Quran? When does one need recourse to
ijtihad and fiqh, and alternatively, when can one directly act on texts of the
Quran and hadith? According to classical jurists, what are the conditions
that must be fulfilled for a person to become qualified to do ijtihad? With
reference to the example pertaining to the situation in which prayer time is
about to expire and person is not able to obtain the required ritual purity
(due to inability to do either wudhu or tayammum), explain the positions
taken by the four Sunni Imams of jurisprudence on this issue, and the legal
reasonings (i.e., verses, principles) through which each arrives at their
particular position. (15)

Ans) Ijtihad can be defined as ‘to exercise legal judgements’ and it is done by the
people qualified to do it who are called ‘Mujtahid’. Ijtihad is to decide a legal
ruling by mujtahids and taqlid is to follow that ruling. The qualified scholars
present a legal ruling and we do taqlid on them. Ijtihad cannot be done to revise
rulings on which the Quran is abundantly clear. Ijtihad is done when the Quran is
unclear on a certain ruling and the answer cannot be found through the Quran and
Sunna. An example could be the prohibition of alcohol; Quran prohibited alcohol
by stating that any intoxication is prohibited. Thus, the scholars decided to prohibit
other types of intoxications such as marijuana and jars by applying the concept of
ijtihad and fiqh. One can directly act on the Quran and Hadith if:
 The Quran and Sunna are completely clear on an issue.
 If there is one text with one meaning.
 If there are multiple text giving one meaning.
 If there are multiple text giving multiple meanings but the chronology i.e.,
the time and order of the revelation is known.
Similarly, one should recourse to ijtihad and fiqh when:
 If the Quran and Sunna are silent on an issue.
 If there is one text with multiple meanings.
 If there are multiple text with multiple meanings and the chronology is not
known.
This can be further emphasized by the following attachment:

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According to Abdul Hakim Murad’s reading, “Understanding the Four Maddhabs”
the conditions that should be met for a person to be classified as a mujtahid (one
who does ijtihad) are as follows:
 He should be a master of the Arabic language; as stated before, the mastery
of the Arabic language is really crucial while doing interpretation and
ijtihad.
 He should have a deep reflective knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah. To
put it more simply, he should know the purpose of a certain revelation and
also be aware of the time that the verse was revealed in.
 He should be specialized in the knowledge of disciplines of hadith i.e., the
assessment of the reliability of the narrations and the text.
 He should be knowledgeable of the opinions of the companions, followers,
and the imams and should have complete knowledge of Fiqh and Ijma
(consensus).
 He should have knowledge about Qiyas (which is a type of ijtihad).

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  Knowledge of one’s society and public interest so that the ruling can come
to maslahah (public interest) in some cases.
 Having the knowledge of the objectives of the Shariah.
 He should be intelligent, pious and should have no record of impermissible
behavior in the past.

In the case where the time for prayer is about to run out and one isn’t able to
perform wudhu or tayammum, Imam Malik suggests that he/she neither prays now
nor prays later. The purpose of this position was that Imam Malik took the position
according to a verse where Allah (SWT) says that He will not burden anyone
beyond their ability. Imam Abu Hanifa, however, is of a different opinion; his
position is that the person shouldn’t pray now but should pray later (qaza). He
believes that ritual purity (wudhu) is obligatory and Salah should be prayed as qaza
and the reasoning is done on the concept of Tahara where if Wudhu is not possible
then it’ll be performed later. Imam Ahmad B Hanbali believes that wudhu
shouldn’t be performed and the person should pray now whereas Imam Shafi is of
the position that the prayer should be performed when wudhu isn’t available and
also after when it is available.

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 PART 2

1. How does Islam view the notion of "equality" with respect to gender? Are
women and men completely “equal” in Islam? What status does Islam
accord to women? Is it true that women get half as much as men in
inheritance? Is the testimony of a woman always half compared to the
testimony of a man? Explain in light of readings and class discussion.(10)

Ans) The feminists nowadays are misrepresenting what the Quran says about the
equality of men and women in terms of gender. There are certain verses of the
Quran that are misinterpreted and are then misrepresented to the public and
according to them, women are inferior (not negatively) to men, and a woman’s
testimony and inheritance is half of a man. This isn’t true, though, because these
are the personal views of the people ignoring the actual text of the Quran. The
Quran is clear on the fact that men and women are completely equal in terms of
spirituality and knowledge. From the readings we come to know that women have
achieved the same extraordinary achievements like hadith memorization,
interpretation and transmission as men have. Thus, the history proves the
authenticity of the fact itself that men and women are both equal in terms of
spirituality and knowledge. However, the question arises that are they both
completely equal in Islam? The answer is that they’re not. Men and women both
are mutually superior to one another and from this the concept of marriage
emerges. A man and a woman help each other in their journey as they are mutually
superior to one another. A woman helps her husband to be better in spirituality and
can be as pious as a man and the same case is with knowledge. The man, however,
has certain obligations that he has to fulfill like to be a financial caretaker etc.
Quran states that Nikkah is half of Iman, and this means that the woman helps the
man complete half of his Iman. It is fascinating how respectful the status of woman
is in the Quran.
Moving on to the inheritance part where people believe that women get half
as men but this is not true at all.

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A deceased man’s inheritance is divided as shown in the above attachment. It is a
misconception to think that a woman gets half of man.
Moving on to the testimony of women as compared to men; women’s
testimony is half of men in only some of the cases.

The attached picture shows the testimony of both men and women in different
cases namely a, b, c and d. The ‘a’ case would be the less confrontational issues
where their testimony is equal to each other like hadith transmission, bequeath etc.
The case ‘b’, is where women’s testimony is half of man. This is when a court case

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is taken into account and the Quran states that to testify a crime, we need two male
witnesses and if that isn’t possible then we need one male and two women
witnesses. This doesn’t imply that women’s testimony is half of man but what the
reality is that to testify a crime is a huge burden which Allah doesn’t like to put on
women. Allah first asks men to take the burden and if that isn’t possible then two
women and one male is enough so that the two women can talk with each other
and not with the man. The 3rd category is when man’s testimony isn’t listened to
such as cases of child birth, nursing etc. and the 4th category is of Hudud and man
is the only one who can give testimony regarding hudud.

3. What are the overarching aims and objectives of the discipline of Islamic
spirituality (tasawwuf)? What are the different practices that were employed
during the Prophetic era and the early post-Prophetic era in order to attain
the objectives of this science? Explain inlight of the readings and lectures.
(10)

Ans) Tasawwuf (the process of purifying one’s heart and soul) is done to achieve
five different goals which are stated below:

(i) PURIFY: To purify means for a person to get rid of blameworthy

attributes such as envy, jealousy greed, anger etc. These blameworthy
attributes are known as the ailments of the heart and to purify means to
get rid of these ailments.
(ii) BEAUTIFY: This means to beautify ourselves with praiseworthy
attributes. To have humility, honesty, haya etc.
(iii) FORTIFY: The next goal is to fortify our Iman, Islam and Ihsan that the
Prophet (PBUH) states in the Hadith of Gabriel. Fortifying Iman will
strengthen our belief in Allah, His Messengers, the Angels and the Books
of Allah so much that our Iman won’t decrease no matter how many
oppositions we face. Fortifying our Islam would be performing our
prayers out of a sense of love and passion rather than a sense of duty and
it would make us feel the closeness to Allah. Fortifying our Ihsan refers
to worshipping Allah as if we see Him.
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 (iv) INTENSIFY: While intensifying, we get the deep love of Allah, we are
drawn to Allah. We also come close to Allah and are also a close and a
dear friend to Him.
(v) RECTIFY: To rectify means to control our nafs. The nafs are of three
types and we go from the lowest level to the highest level of nafs because
of Tasawwuf. The different nafs are Nafs-al-ammarah, Nafs-al-
lawwamah and Nafs-al-mutmainna.

Moving on to the different practices to attain Tasawwuf that are:

i. To assess one’s spiritual state (muhasiba).
ii. Inform and communicate about the issue (rabita).
iii. Keep company of the pious (suhba).
iv. Counselling and reminder (naseeha).
v. Following the advice.
vi. Nafl ibada i.e., Voluntary worship.
vii. Following the Sunna (ittiba sunna).
viii. Taking a teacher of tazkiyya (shaykh).
ix. Taking a pledge of a sin (bay’ah).
x. Making genuine true tauba and staying true to it.

The first step towards purifying oneself is to realize what the problem is with one’s
spirituality (to assess one’s spiritual state). Once you identify the problem, you
have to communicate that issue to other people and you need to keep the company
of the pious. You have to be near to the righteous people so that they can guide and
counsel you and bring you back on the right path. Along with following their
advice, you have to perform Nafl ibada to increase in your faith and the most
important step is to follow the sunna of the Prophet (PBUH) that is ittiba sunna.
The reason ittiba sunna is so important is that the Quran itself tells the Prophet
(PBUH) to tell the people to obey the Prophet (PBUH), for obeying him is
equivalent to obeying Allah. Other than that, you have to have a teacher of
tazkiyya who’ll guide you towards the path of purity and then you will need to
make a pledge to Allah regarding the sin you have performed. To make a pledge
means that you genuinely feel remorse for the sin that you have performed and
promising that you will never perform that sin again and will stay true to that
tauba.
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4. Classically, scholars have always understood tazkiyya/tasawwuf to be a
valid Islamic science. In contemporary times, however, one finds that there
is, on one hand, a view that rejects tasawwuf, labeling it as a bidʿa and
having no basis in Sharīʿa, while, on the other hand, another view that has
taken tasawwuf to include certain excessive practices and doctrines that
are questionable in the Sharīʿa. How would you respond to both views? In
your answer, you should (1) clarify the meaning of bidʿa and the different
types of bidʿaas understood by the classical scholars, and (2) explain the
parameters and conditions that demarcate the authentic practices and
teachings of tasawwuf? (10)

Ans) Firstly we need to understand the concept of Bid’a in Islam. Bida in

dictionary terms means anything new, or a matter newly begun but in Islam it is
defined as a misguidance. Different hadiths state that our Prophet (PBUH) said that
every new invention in Islam is a bid’a and every bid’a is a misguidance and every
misguidance is in Hellfire. To understand it comprehensively we need to realize
that in inventions, there are two different aspects which are, (i) goals and (ii)
means. Furthermore, I’ve attached a diagram to explain the types of bid’a:

As shown above, there are five types of bid’a namely, Wajib, recommended,
permissible, reprehensible, and prohibited bid’a. Their examples are also stated
below now the thing to note here is that reprehensible bid’a isn’t haram but is

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hateful and not recommended. The high amount of money could be spent to help
the poor instead of building a masjid. Taking into account the actual question and
the two aspects that I mentioned above, we notice that the examples in the diagram
doesn’t go against the goals of an act. As long as the goals aren’t added or
subtracted, the new act is not a prohibited bid’a. One can change the means to
attain that goal but the goal itself cannot be changed and an example could be
adding diacritical marks in the Quran. The goal is to understand the Quran and
only the means have been changed by this invention. So, this is a wajib bid’a and is
therefore, not haram. This discussion answers the first claim that not every
invention is a bid’a (misguidance – haram) but the ones where the actual goal has
been changed is haram. Moving on to the second view that anything new in Islam
after the Prophet (PBUH) is bid’a. These people then also consider voluntary acts
of worship as bid’a too but to respond to this view, I will consider the above
discussion that the goal should remain the same and only the means should be
changed. Moreover, the invention should not be against the Quran and Sunna in the
Shariah and shouldn’t change farz, wajib and sunna ibada. Lastly, the act itself
shouldn’t be elevated to a level which it does not possess like people during the
times of the Prophet (PBUH) used to visit graves and that led to idolatry of those
graves. The Prophet (PBUH) had to prohibit visiting graves at that time because
the people were elevating the amal to a level it did not possess. Only Allah has the
right to be worshipped!

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5. What is interest (riba) in Islamic law? What were the different stages
through which the ban on interest was gradually introduced? What are the
common misunderstandings about interest, and how has the author
responded to them? Finally, what are some of the ills of interest to an
economy and society?(10)

Ans) Interest defined in dictionary terms is a charge made for a loan or credit
facility. However, Islam defines it as any excess amount paid or received on the
principal amount. Interest is the only sin that Allah doesn’t allow man to enjoy in
this world. Other sins like consuming alcohol, zina, robbery etc are allowed to be
enjoyed in this world but riba (interest) isn’t allowed to be enjoyed.
The prohibition on riba was introduced in the Quran in different stages and
the author divides it into three different stages:
Stage 1: Clarifying that Riba carries no reward with Allah
Stage 2: Outright Ban on Interest but not retrospectively (past loans)
Stage 3: Reiterating the Ban on Interest and imposing a retrospective ban (on past
loans too)

Allah says in Surah Ar-Rum, verse 39:

‘And whatever Riba you give so that it may increase in the wealth of the people, it
does not increase with Allah.’

Later on, Allah says in the Surah Al-Imran, verse 130:

‘O those who believe do not consume up Riba, doubled & redoubled.’

Finally, Allah then completely prohibits Riba in Surah Baqarah after the conquest
of Makkah and commanded us to abandon every single amount of Riba in
procession (interest of past loans).
There are a lot of misunderstandings about Riba and I’ll be stating them below in
the light of the reading and our lecture:

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 (i) The Riba that Allah (SWT) prohibited is a different type of Riba
To answer this misunderstanding, we need to remember that Allah is Al-Hadi and
He is All-Knowing. If the Riba that Allah (SWT) talks about in the Quran is
something else then He would’ve told us about it in the Quran. The author
responds to this by stating some of the verses from the Quran which are:
‘do not consume riba, doubled or redoubled.’
‘If you repent, yours is your principal, and nothing more.’

(ii) The Prophet (PBUH) didn’t have the time to interpret the prohibition of
Riba because the verses were revealed in his final days
This misconception in my opinion is completely baseless because Allah Himself
says that Muhammad (PBUH) has completed our Deen Islam and therefore has
clearly shown us the way. The author responds to this argument by stating that
there was sufficient time from the stage 2 to the stage 3 of the ban and our Prophet
(PBUH) did have the time to interpret the concept of Riba and Riba is what we
believe it to be today.

(iii) The prohibition only applies on the riba of consumption loans and not
the commercial loans
The author responds by saying that the ban is absolute ban on interest and the
Quran makes no distinction over commercial and consumption loans. Moreover,
the logic of the ban would also take into account the commercial loans because to
provide a loan commercially, one has to participate in both its profits and losses.
The author also states the economical situation of Saudi Arabia when interest was
prohibited and according to him, the people used to perform trade and thus, were in
need to commercial loans too. So, we can’t make claims that commercial loans
didn’t exist during the prohibition.

Moving on to the last part of the question is that what would be the ills caused by
interest to the society? History has proven that the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer because of the application of interest. The logic behind this is that loans are
only accounted for profit even if the person who took the loan faces a loss. The

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nature of loans should be to take part in both the profits and losses because taking
part in only the profits arises many discrepancies and unfairness for other people.

If we take into account the above example then we come to know that the actual
owners (depositors) receive only 15% of the profit when in reality the profit is
actually 100% of the principal amount. The person who took the loan must be
happy with the profit he made but it is really unfair for the depositor whose money
he used to generate the profit. This is why Islam prohibits both the giving and the
consumption of the interest.

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 Part 3

2. What are the implications of plurality of legal opinions? How does

plurality affect notions of authority and legitimacy? Is plurality of legal
opinion a positive characteristic of the Islamic legal system or does it
generate negative heterogeneity? Can multiple positions be valid and/or
correct? Or is this an apologetic stance aiming to gloss over irreconcilable
legal positions? Be sure to mention which arguments from the readings and
lectures you found convincing and why, as well as which you found less
convincing and why. What is your perspective? (15)

Ans) The fact that the Quran and the Sunna are unclear about certain aspects of life
causes the existence of differences of opinions or the plurality of legal opinions.
The legitimacy and authority of one opinion is deteriorated because of another
opinion opposing it. However, based on the readings that we have done during the
course, it can be stated that multiple positions do not really in nature arise negative
heterogeneity. Well, it depends though because the world has different types of
people like the traditionalists and the ideologues. The ideologues give a rise to
negativity by stating that only their position is valid but in reality, no one has the
right to oppose any other person. I agree with the perspectives that the reading
gave and they are that one shouldn’t try to contradict another person’s position but
should consider other people’s positions as valid too. Thus, it can be said that
multiple positions can be valid and correct. If one believes in a contradictory
position then he should solely act upon it and not tell others that they’re erring. The
ideologues in today’s world believe that only their position is valid and disregard
other people’s opinions and this is a major issue. Even our Prophet (PBUH) said
that his community will have differences of opinion among them. I believe that as
long as the position is rational and logical and it doesn’t go against the Quran and
the Sunnah then it is valid. The position, however, shouldn’t be based on mere
personal opinion and on the basis of one’s desires and one’s ease.

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