AT-TUFI'S REFUTATION OF TRADITIONAL MUSLIM JURISTIC SOURCES OF LAW AND HIS VIEW ON THE PRIORITY OF REGARD FOR HUMAN WELFARE AS THE HIGHEST LEGAL SOURCE OR PRINCIPLE (ISLAMIC)

• Main Author: AL-HUSAYN AL-AMIRI, ABDALLAH MUHAMMAD
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-1982
• Subjects: Law; Philosophy; Religion
• ISBN: 9798660257100

This dissertation deals essentially with the legal view of human welfare as expounded by the Muslim thinker, Najm ad-D(')in at-Tuf(')i, of the eighth century A.H. (fourteenth century A.D.). In all matters of human relationships, that is, in all legal, social or political matters, at-Tuf(')i stipulates and defends the view that regard for human welfare has or must have a priority of consideration above all forms of religious texts (that is, above all texts considered as legal or semi-legal, whether in the Qur'an or the alleged Traditions of the Prophet) and other sources regarded as legal by traditional Muslim legal schools, including juristic consensus (ijma('c)) and analogy (qiyas) based on juristic interpretations of texts. At-Tuf(')i points out that the Qur'anic text and the text of the alleged Sunnah or Traditions of the Prophet are "divergent and contradictory to each other" (mukhtalifah muta('c)aridah) and that the latter is self-contradictory in its text and sources of transmissions (ta('c)arud ar-riwayati wa an-nusus). Moreover, he points out that the followers of each traditional legal school had fabricated its own form of Traditions, which they ascribed to the Prophet, in defense of their own particular legal school and in dispraise of others (fa unzur, bi Allah, amran yahmilu al-atba('c)a ('c)ala wad('c)i al-ahad(')ithi f(')i tafd(')ili a'immatihim wa dhammi ba('c)dihim) and that "competition..., bloodshed, quarrel and mutual aversion" have been widespread among the followers of the various legal schools. Hence, seeing that the texts (regarded as legal or binding on the authority of juristic interpretations or on the authority of alleged Traditions ascribed to the Prophet--the latter deemed as sacred and authentic not by the Muslims as a whole or by the non-traditional Muslims or scholars who had rejected their legal validity or dismissed them as pure fabrication, but by the alleged sectarian consensus of the various opposing legal schools or their traditionist followers) do or may in fact lead to social harm (tadmunu dararan), at-Tuf(')i concludes that neither the texts nor any other traditional legal source, including juristic consensus and analogy, constitute a rationally or legitimately compelling legal source. At best, however, they may be regarded, he says, only when they are in conformity with the regard for human welfare. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI