164 No god but God
Prophet as a primary source of law. As rigorous as scholars like al-
Bukhari and Ibn al-Hajjaj were in scrutinizing each hadith for the
signs of correct transmission, the fact is that their method lacked any
attempt at political or religious objectivity. The bulk of what are con-
sidered to be sound traditions were deemed so not because their
isnads were particularly strong, but because they reflected the major-
ity beliefs and practices of the community. In other words, the hadith
were collected, and the Sunna developed, specifically to create a sense
of Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxy by legitimizing those beliefs and
practices that were already widely accepted by the majority of the
Ulama, and eliminating those that were not. While some hadith may
in fact contain an authentic historical core that can be traced back to
the Prophet and his earliest Companions, the truth is that the Sunna is
a far better reflection of the opinions of the ninth-century Ulama than
of the seventh-century Ummah. After all, to quote Jonathan Berkey,
“It was not Muhammad himself who defined the Sunna, but rather a
memory of him.”
Reliable or not, the Sunna was grossly inadequate for addressing
the myriad legal issues that arose as Islam expanded into an Empire. A
number of other sources had to be developed to cope with those con-
cerns not expressly dealt with in the Quran and the Sunna. Chief
among these was the use of analogical arguments, or qiyas, which
allowed the Ulama to draw parallels between their community and
Muhammad’s when responding to new and unfamiliar legal dilemmas.
Of course, analogies can be stretched only so far and, in any case, the
Traditionalist-dominated schools of law were wary of placing too
much emphasis on reasoning over Revelation. So while qiyas
remained a vital tool in the development of the Shariah, the Ulama
ultimately grew far more dependent on the fourth source of law: ijma,
or “juridical consensus.”
Relying on the Prophet’s saying that “my community will never
agree on an error,” the Ulama posited that the unanimous consensus
of the legal scholars of a particular age on a particular issue could cre-
ate binding legal decisions, even if those decisions seemed to violate
Quranic prescriptions (as was the case with the practice of stoning
adulterers). Like the Sunna, ijma was developed specifically to create