From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Ijmāʿ (إجماع) is an Arabic term referring to the consensus or agreement of the Muslim community basically on religious issues. Various schools of thought within Islamic jurisprudence may define this consensus to be that of the first generation of Muslims only; or the consensus of the first three generations of Muslims; or the consensus of the jurists and scholars of the Muslim world, or scholarly consensus; or the consensus of all the Muslim world, both scholars and laymen.


Sunni view[edit]

The hadith of Muhammad which states that "My ummah will never agree upon an error"[1] is often cited as a proof for the validity of ijmā'. Sunni Muslims regard ijmā' as the third fundamental source of Sharia law, just after the divine revelation of the Qur'an, and the prophetic practice known as Sunnah. While there are differing views over who is considered a part of this consensus, the majority view is split between two possibilities: that religiously binding consensus is the consensus of the entire Muslim community, or that religiously binding consensus is just the consensus of the religiously learned.[2] The names of two kinds of consensus are:

  • ijma al-ummah - a whole community consensus.
  • ijma al-aimmah - a consensus by religious authorities.[3]



Abu Hanifa, Ahmad bin Hanbal and Dawud al-Zahiri, on the other hand, considered this consensus to only include the companions of the prophet Muhammad, excluding all generations which followed them, in Medina and elsewhere.[8][9]

Views within Sunni Islam branched off even further in later generations, with Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi defining even a simple majority view as constituting consensus and Ibn Taymiyyah restricting consensus to the view of the religiously learned only.[9] Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari's position was not entirely clear, as modern scholarship has attributed to him both the view that consensus means a simple majority,[9] and that it means only the consensus of the companions of Muhammad.[10]

Shia view[edit]


Mu'tazilite view[edit]

The ancient Mu'tazilite sect did not consider consensus to be a valid source of law, primarily due to their rationalist criticism of the first generation of Muslims, whom the Mu'tazila viewed as possessing defective personalities and intellects.[12] Shi'ite theoligans Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid and Sharif al-Murtaza held the Mu'tazilite theologian Nazzam's book Kitab al-Nakth in which his student Al-Jahiz reports that he denied the validity of consensus for this reason in high esteem.[13] Modern scholarship has suggested that this interest was motivated by the desire of Shi'ite theoligans to impugn the character of the first three leaders of the Rashidun Caliphate, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman.[12]

See also[edit]



External links[edit]