MPL and diversity in Islamic Law

by Ustaaz, ahmed Fazel Ebrahim

Due to historical and academic reasons relating to the interpretational formats of Islamic Law, various Islamic legal schools developed and these were later adopted as the standard patterns of Islamic adherence and were considered acceptable by the Muslim jurists. This led to subsequent generations of Muslims who then began to follow these schools which had already developed and codified almost all the major divisions of Islamic law. The geographic locations and absence of instant communication in the early days prevented the jurists of these Islamic legal schools to comparatively study the opinions of each other on a regular basis or in all issues of the law. Rather, on the contrary, the travels of scholars, pilgrimage of Muslims and the spread of Islam also continued the spread of the emerging Islamic legal schools. The general Muslim public which formed part of the non-academic and non-scholastic segment of Islamic scholars were thus obliged to follow teachings advocated by scholars in the communities or geographic regions.

The subject of Muslim Personal Law, after the primary scholastic agreements on issues of law in the qur'an and the ahadith,  is most affected and structured by the Fatawa and legal reasoning of Muslim scholars, professionals, academics, Ulema and Muftis. 

Conflicting opinions on matters of Islamic law  arise for various reasons:

1. Differences regarding the ahadith

1.1 Due to differing standards in the selection of ahadith for inferential purposes.

1.2 Availability of ahadith or absence thereof at the instance of formulating the rules of Islamic Law.

2. Linguistic differences that influenced the nature of the interpretation of the primary Arabic texts of the law.

3. Diversity of the mazhabs which arose due to the above factors as well as other associated reasons

4. Diversity of interpretations within a single school of Islamic Law.

4.1 From scholars who follow the same mazhab but who hold diverse views due to independent judgment and inferential analyses.

5. Due to ideological differences which arose through conflicting interpretations given to Qur'anic verses, the ahadith or other theological matters.

5.1 From scholars which follow the same Islamic legal school but whose religious ideologies differ in respect to particular issues like the contemporary differences between the Deobandis and the Berelvis which originated in India. The latter are both Indian and both predominantly follow the Hanafi school of thought.

6. Diversity of the secular or other legal systems adopted by Muslim States as well as those which are current in non-Muslim States which allow the implementation of Muslim Personal Law very often influence thinking patterns of Muslim jurists and others who draft the legislative structure of MPL (Muslim Personal Law). Thus, a law that ought to be globally uniform, is now diverse in many respects. Thus, the interpretations of different mazahib is not the only factor since other differences stem from the various secular clauses that are added to issues within the so called " Islamic law."