Ijmāʿ and Its Dilemmas in the Thought of Hasan Hanafi

Abstract

Hassan Hanafi's attempt to contribute to the renewal of uṣūl al-fiqh (sources of Islamic jurisprudence) and to subject the revelation to critical methods has been a highly problematic issue on account of his confused interpretation of the foundations of jurisprudence. His misunderstanding is most apparent in his interpretation of the term of ijmā ʿ (scholarly consensus) in uṣūl al-fiqh . This study takes the term ijmā ʿ as an example to discuss the problems of renewing uṣūl al-fiqh using Hanafi's approach. The research scrutinizes Hanafi's approach to ijmā ʿ in light of other texts in uṣūl al-fiqh , in line with to their descriptive and critical methods. It concludes that Hanafi's conception of uṣūl al-fiqh is insufficient to achieve any renewal. Furthermore, it will be shown that Hanafi sought to develop new terms for issues that the experts of uṣūl al-fiqh already discussed. Consequently the "renewal" pursued by Hanafi in uṣūl al-fiqh , was purely verbal, of little use to experts in uṣūl al-fiqh .