Inadequacy of the laws ordained by Allah in the Koran   

We have seen earlier that Sayyid Qutb in his article Allah's Law and the Law of Ignorance (Islamic Voice, April 2009) asserts that every Muslim should blindly follow the law Allah has revealed in the Koran without any alteration or modification. Ordinary people may be tempted to compromise with Allah's law in view of certain circumstances, or events, or due to willingness of his neighbours, or in fear of the enemy. But, to be a good Muslim, he must always adhere to Allah's law alone. So he writes,  

"What can one say in justification of setting Allah's law aside and substituting for it a law of ignorance placing in the process his own desires or those of a particular community or generation above Allah's law? ...What is his justification: circumstances? events? people's unwillingness? Fear of the enemy? Were not all these known to Allah when He commanded Muslims to implement His Law and follow His way of life? ...Or does he justify his attitude by claiming that Allah's law does not cater for new needs and new situations? Were not these needs and situations known to Allah when He made this very stern warning?"

So, according to Sayyid Qutb, the law Allah revealed in the Koran some 1,400 years ago is still adequate to tackle any situation, any problem even today, because Allah has taken care of every possibility that may arise anywhere in the world at any time. Hence, a Muslim should never feel it necessary to follow jahiliya law, the law of ignorance, created by man.

But history tells us a completely different thing. During lifetime of the Prophet, Arabia was a land of semi-civilized pastoral and nomadic people; hence Allah's law, revealed in the Koran, was adequate for solving any problem arising out of the simple Arabian society.. But after Muhammad's death, particularly during the reign of the second caliph Umar, Muslims had conquered many countries, including Egypt and Syria, advanced in civilization with a complex and well-organized sociopolitical system. Particularly the economic problems like inheritance, wills and testaments, loans, payment of loans, bankruptcy, partnership in business, mortgaging of property etc., which were mostly unknown in Arabia , could not be solved with the help of Allah's law. So it became necessary to find out whether such situation arose in Arabia during the Prophet's lifetime and how he could have solved such problems. This need inspired the Arabs to collect hadith or Prophet's tradition, which started during the reign of pious Umayyad, Umar II (717-720). Eventually, some 1465 editions of the Hadith were compiled; of these compilations, only six were considered faultless by the Muslim world. And out of the six, two of them-one compiled by Bukhari and the other by Muslim-were considered absolutely flawless (Sahih Hayen) or truthful twins.

Last update : 22-05-2009 12:20

Keywords : Uncovered Backwardness of Muslims: Part 6, Radhasyam Brahmachari

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