axiomatic principles of jurisprudence, legal theory ( qawāʿid, uṣūl ), and uHni sd terrasitnainndg i nwga tshae vvearryi orui gsi dp ,ossoi tpi oh ni sst ioc fa tt he de laengda li ns ct rhi oc ao tl eo pn rpoac retsi sc :u hl aarv ii snsgu teos . know the legal nuances and idiosyncrasies of the Ḥanafī legal school, why one fatwā may appear to contradict another, and the process of academic review and writing of a fatwā . To do all this, a muftī had to be knowledgeable not just of the Sharīʿah but of worldly matters, including the temperaments of people. It was a noble position respected by all Muslims. TRAINING AS A MUFTĪ: PRIORITIZING JUSTICE ABOVE ALL ELSE In the late 1980s, I trained at Imārat al-Sharī ʿ ah 1 and studied with Qāḍī Mujāhid al-Islām ◌ؒ ◌ . He was, simply, a genius of a legal scholar. He had the mu ni nd edros ft oaotdr .uIen j audr idsitt iwo hn o, huenudnedr setrosot odotdh ea nl adwc ot hnes iwd earye idt Ii ss lma me ai cnltatwo bi ne b o t h a n imn et etrhnea tpi ao rnaal ll eal ns di nl ebgoatlhf rsayms t ee wmos rokf at nh idn skai nwg haonwd ht hoewy Icsol ammp iacr leadw. Hweasshsouwp ee dr i o r tsoe , obtuhte ro fl ei ng at el lsl eycs tt ue ma l st.rMa i yn itnrga iinni nl eggwa li tt hh ehoi rmy . cIown soius tl de ds int oi nt oc fa s“ jeusdagneds hoibps” eprevre tl ahwe :pdr oi vcoerscseo, fi nj uh reirsittiacnccoenasnudl t aptri oo pn e. rMt yo srti gcha tsse. sI nc oI nn cdei ar n, sepde Mc i fui sc lai lml y pi ne rBs iohnaarl, Orissa, and Karnataka, where Muslims choose to have Sharīʿah courts instead of secular courts, the qāḍī in these places could give a ruling and the state would enforce the law. The Hindu state accepted the rulings from these 1 An institution for training Muslim judges near Patna, Bihar, India
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