“Why Do We Debate?”

Abstract

AbstractvfJurists claimed to engage in disputation to find God’s law yet continued to debate the same issues over generations. Had their predecessors not found God’s law? Beyond an exercise in pedagogical training, what purpose was served by revisiting disputations (munāẓarāt), time and again? To answer these questions, this chapter excavates juristic debates within the books of uṣūl al-fiqh. It examines how jurists see the various functions of munāẓara to converge on two discursive foundations: one, that each jurist carries an individual duty of ijtihād (the search for God’s law); and two, that God’s law is ever uncertain. It is the notion that each jurist bore responsibility—for himself—of seeking out the law within this terrain of uncertainty that granted classical critique its salience: only by examining the conflicting views of his predecessors could any jurist claim due diligence and credibly offer guidance to lay Muslims.