torah. This is an early Jewish reference to Enoch,
who is mentioned in the Bible as a descendant of
adam and an ancestor of Noah who had “walked
with God.” Likewise, Islamic tradition regards
Idris as a prophet who lived between the time of
Adam and Noah. Eighth-century Muslim sources
explicitly mention that Idris’s true name is Enoch
and that he is called Idris in Arabic because of his
devotion to the study (dars) of the sacred books
of his ancestors Adam and Seth (a son of Adam).
In the line of legendary prophets who preceded
mUhammad (d. 632), he is credited with being the
first person to write with a pen, to sew clothes,
and to study astronomy. According to one prophet
story, Idris’s great piety attracted the attention
of the angel of death, who visited him for three
days in his human form and then rewarded him
with a tour of heaven, hell, and the gardens of
paradise. Muhammad is said to have met Idris in
the fourth heaven during his night JoUrney and
ascent. Sufi masters such as rUzbihan baqli (d.
1209) and mUhyi al-din ibn al-arabi (d. 1240)
also mention that they encountered him in their
visionary journeys.
See also JUdaism and islam; prophets and
prophecy.
Further reading: Yoram Erder, “The Origin of the Idris
in the Quran: A Study of the Influence of Qumran Lit-
erature on Early Islam.” Journal of Near East Studies 49
(1990): 339–350; Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi,
Arais al-majalis fi qisas al-anbiya, or “Lives of the Proph-
ets.” Translated by William M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 2002), 83–85.
ifrit See jinni.
ijmaa (Arabic: consensus, agreement)
A technical term used in Islamic law (fiqh), ijmaa
was the third authoritative source after the qUran
and the sUnna considered by Sunni jurists when
they made a ruling or advisory opinion (FatWa). In
contrast to ijtihad (individual reasoned opinion),
ijmaa recognized the social and practical basis
of law. Also, unlike ijtihad, it was thought to be
free of error. The Ulama justified using consensus
as a source in their interpretations of the sharia
by invoking a hadith attributed to mUhammad
that said, “My community will never agree in an
error.” They also used quranic verses for support,
such as Q 2:143: “We have made you a middle
community [umma] so that you may be witnesses
before humankind.” Thus, jurists linked ijmaa to
an idealized concept of Islamic community using
the words of sacred scripture and the Prophet.
Ijmaa was originally rooted in pre-Islamic
Arabian custom, which continued to develop in
the Arabian Peninsula and in newly conquered
towns and settlements throughout the Middle
East in the wake of the Arab-Islamic conquests
of the seventh and eighth centuries. It gradually
evolved from being a sociocultural practice to a
religious one. Early scholars, judges, and admin-
istrators based their judgments on the Quran and
sunna (customary practice) of localities, such as
medina and Kufa in southern iraq. When they
needed to recommend what the correct sunna for
Muslims to follow should be, they looked to the
ijmaa of the local community. Even the selection
of hadith to substantiate what was sunna was
done in conformity to consensus. After al-Shafii’s
efforts to systematize the science of Islamic juris-
prudence in the early ninth century, consensus
was increasingly identified with the practice of
the Muslim community during Muhammad’s life-
time as established by the jurists who constituted
the chief authorities of the different law schools.
Defined largely in religious terms, it gained a kind
of perfection or infallibility in the eyes of Sunni
jurists that ijtihad and analogical reasoning (qiyas)
never had. The assertion of infallibility for Mus-
lim consensus helped give coherence to the legal
schools, make them more inclined to accept each
other’s authority, and accept or reject customs and
practices originating in non-Muslim societies and
other religions. Jurists belonging to the Twelve-ijmaa 345 J