SUYUTI’S CLAIMS FOR IJTIHAD AND TAJDID

Up to the end of the eighth/fourteenth century, no voice, as far as I know, rose to condemn the claims of mujtahids to practice ijtihad in the context of their schools. But as time lapsed, the doctrine of taqlid was steadily gaining genuine support from the mass of jurists.

The first incident in which muqallids openly contravened the claims of muj- tahids occurred in Egypt, during the lifetime of Suyuti (849/1445-911/1505). The latter had conceitedly claimed for himself the rank of mujtahid. In his polemical work al-Radd ^cala man Akhlada ila al·Ard wa-Jahila anna al·Ijtihad fi kull ^cAsr Fard he argues that ijtihad is a fard kifaya to be fulfilled by the Muslim community, and if there were no mujtahids it would mean that the community had agreed upon error, something that is of course impossible. Were all Muslim jurists to become muqallids, ijtihad would cease, and in consequence Shari^ca would be demolished. Therefore, says Suyuti, ijtihad is the backbone of Shari^ca and without it no legal decisions can be reached.¹⁵⁵

The kind of ijtihad that Suyuti claimed to be able to practice is the highest degree within the Shafi^ci school; a degree that he calls ‘mutlaq’.¹⁵⁶ It will be recalled that for Suyuti, ‘mustaqill’ indicates the highest degree of ijtihad, which is that of the eponyms. But for a great segment of scholars mutlaq is the highest rank of ijtihad.¹⁵⁷ Because of this terminology, Suyuti had put himself in a difficult position and was encumbered in trying to explain that mustaqill is the rank that disappeared while mutlaq is yet attainable.¹⁵⁸ Speaking of himself he said: “God has bestowed on me alone and uniquely the duty of undertaking ijtihad in this age.”¹⁵⁹ Suyuti’s claim for superiority to his contemporaries was disdainfully resented.¹⁶⁰ To justify these claims he argued that he was striving to fulfill the fard kifaya of ijtihad in order to discharge this duty on behalf of his community.

We must not take the opposition to Suyuti to mean that the Muslim com­munity of the ninth/fifteenth century went out unanimously against ijtihad and the existence of mujtahids. Suyuti’s personality must be taken into account in evaluating the antagonistic attitude towards his claim. Opposition was mainly directed against “Suyuti’s boastfulness” and against his “immense self-confidence”: He was disliked because he praised himself while casually condemning his oppo­nents and calling them “fools, if not worse.”¹⁶¹ _

Why did Suyuti want to be a mujtahid? The answer to this question presents us with another matter, intimately related to the issue of the existence of muj­tahids. The ultimate ambition of Suyuti was to become the mujaddid of the tenth/sixteenth century. By attaining the rank of ijtihad, which was considered a prerequisite to tajdid, Suyuti had hoped to be qualified for that position.¹⁶²

The idea of tajdid had been predominant since at least the fifth/eleventh century; it was justified on the basis of the prophetic report: “God sends at the turn of each century (^cala ra^si kulli ma³a) a man who renovates for this com­munity the matters of its religion.”¹⁶³ It has been universally agreed that the first two mujaddids for the second and third Islamic centuries were the Caliph ^cUmar b. ^cAbd al-^cAziz and Shafi^ci.¹⁶⁴ For the centuries that followed there was, at one time or another, a difference of opinion as to who the mujaddid was; but there certainly had always been at least one. Ibn Surayj and the theologian Ash^cari are mentioned for the fourth Islamic century. In this case Subki prefers Ibn Surayj because his death took place closer to the turn of the century than that of Ash^cari and because he renovated the positive law of Shari^ca while Ash^cari was mainly an advocate of usul al-din.¹⁶⁵ For the fifth century a choice was made between Abu Hamid al-Isfara^ini and Abu Sahl al-Su^cluki.¹⁶⁶ Ghazali was the mujaddid of the sixth century, and Razi of the seventh.

By the admission of Muslim scholars, therefore, mujaddids who were, inter alia, mujtahids, appeared at least once every century. Sometimes, as we have seen, there was more than one mujaddid for a single century. Now, one may ask, who are the jurists that held the extinction of mujtahids to be an established fact when it was clear that mujaddids were continuously present? At the time of Suyuti these were the Hanafis, the Malikis, and part of the Shafi^ci school. Most of the leading minds of the Shafi^ci school, however, rejected the theory of the possible extinction of mujtahids. In fact, almost all of the jurists who were given the task of tajdid were Shafi^cis.¹⁷³ It is evident that those who promoted the idea of mujaddids had also promoted ijtihad and supported mujtahids while denying the possibility of their extinction (some jurists, however, accepted this possibility in theory). Hanafis and Malikis, being consistent in their actions, did not even participate in the race for tajdid.

Even if it is assumed that by the time of Suyuti the extinction of mujtahids had been well established, why cannot Suyuti, or someone else for that matter, provided he is qualified, still become a mujtahid? Is he not only attempting the fulfillment of the fard kifaya which is a perennial duty? And, if for a period of time there were no mujtahids, is the community destined to live without them forever, even if they were to reappear? These questions, to the best of my knowl­edge, find no answers whatsoever in the legal literature of Medieval Islam.