Understanding The Prophet's Life
From Issue: 803 [Read full issue]
Prophet's Abstinence
We receive Islamic legal rulings from the Prophet (peace be upon him) in three ways: his words, his deeds, and his tacit approvals. Ibn Rushd asserts in Bidâyah al-Mujtahid that this is one of the undisputed principles of Islamic jurisprudence. As for the Prophet abstaining from something - that is not one of the three ways.
So what are the legal implications of the Prophet (peace be upon him) not performing an act?
A faulty assumption some people have is that if the Prophet did not do something, then it should not be done by his followers. This can create great hardships for people in their practice of Islam. For one thing, such people reject the approach of making concessions for the purpose of facilitation. They argue that if the Prophet did not apply a certain concession in a certain way, though the need for doing so would have been present, this is proof it is unlawful to do so. However, this is contradicted by a considerable body of evidence.
1. The unlawfulness of something must be established by a specific prohibition or by what encompasses evidence of a prohibition in its general import. The Prophet said: “Whatever I prohibit you, you must avoid it.” [Bukhari, Muslim]
The Prophet’s abstaining from something is not a prohibition nor is it something that encompasses evidence of a prohibition in its general import. Quite the contrary, the general evidence in Islamic Law indicates that hardships are to be avoided.
2. There are many authentic hadith that show the Companions initiating actions and saying things that the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not himself do or say. They were never criticized for this. The talbiyah is a case in point. The people followed the Companions in the wording of the talbiyah, as indicated by the hadith of Jabir, and no one objected to their doing so. [Ahmad, Abu Dawud]
Their wording of the talbiyah was different than the Prophet’s wording, which shows that the Prophet’s abstaining from something does not prevent anyone else from doing so. Indeed, the Prophet at times praised the Companions for their actions and at times remained silent without criticizing them. This shows there is flexibility in such things.
3. There is no implication that what took place at the Prophet’s time indicates abandoning everything else and that nothing is open to increase or decrease. Such a notion is very imprecise and suspect. Its logic is faulty. The circumstances at the Prophet’s time called for certain things, but circumstances differ at other times, sometimes becoming more intense, which requires Muslim jurists to exercise juristic reasoning (ijtihad) in accordance with the general precepts of Islamic Law.
A good example of this is the compilation of the Quran into a single volume. The Prophet (peace be upon him) never commanded his followers to do so. There was no need to do so during his lifetime. However circumstances changed after his time when many of the people who had committed the Quran to memory began to die off. This is why Abu Bakr ordered that the Quran be compiled in one volume. The Companions unanimously agreed to it. The same can be said for their congregating for tarawih prayer and increasing the number of prayer units they offered which took place during Umar’s reign. Likewise, Uthman added an additional early call for the Jumuah prayer when the city’s population increased. He also standardized the Quran which was compiled during his predecessor’s time and abandoned the practice of shortening his prayers during the Hajj.
Those who have insight into Islamic Law make a distinction between the Prophet’s tacit approval of someone else’s action, which can be used to deduce a ruling that must be upheld, and the Prophet abstaining from an action, which only indicates that there is no objection to someone abstaining from it. There can be no further binding ruling, since circumstances govern such matters.
Compiled From:
"When the Prophet Did Not Do Something" - Abdullah bin Bayyah