The
Islamic scholar, the Andalusian philosopher, historian, and theologian (b. 7
November 994, Córdoba [Cordoba], Andalusian Umayyad State – d. August 15, 1064,
Manta Misha, Huelva, The Taifa Kingdoms Of Seville / Andalusia). Abu Muhammad
Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Saʿid ibn Hazm was born 994.
CE
(384 AH) in Cordoba (Qurtuba) in Spain and died 1064/456. His son records that
he wrote four hundred books, covering 80,000 pages, but very few survived. Ibn
Hazm came from a wealthy and influentialfamily. His father served as Minister
under Hisham ibn al-Hakam the Ummayad ruler of Andalus. But Hisham’s successor
al-Muʿtaḍid who was a repressive ruler took issue with Ibn Hazm on account of
his “unorthodox” writings and his opposition to the Maliki doctrine that was
then prevalent in Andalus. Ibn Hazm suffered imprisonment and the burning of
his books, yet the calibre of his academic legacy increasingly became the focus
of scholarly attention down the ages, especially in our own times.
Ibn
Hazm’s Mahalla is a multi-volume comprehensive examination of legal issues from
a comparative yet literalist perspective that provides often refreshingly
original interpretation of the Qur’ān and Hadith. It is partly due to the
exceedingly critical tone of his language that he invoked hostility to his
otherwise many valuable contributions. His book on the sources of law is Ihkam
al-ahkam fi usul al-ahkam. Besides books on science and medicine, he wrote what
some consider the first comparative religious study of Islam, Judaism, and
Christianity. His book on love The Ring of the Dove exists in a single
manuscript transcribed in 1338 CE. The historian of Muslim Spain R. Dozy
studied it, and its editors over the years included famous Orientalists such as
Ignaz Goldziher and C. Brockelmann. A. J. Arberry translated it as A Treatise
on the Art and Practice of Arab Love. Spanish scholars see it as an important
basis for Hispano-Arab poetry and literature, and it may have been a crucial
piece in the development of the troubadourtradition (e.g., Chansons de Roland).
Below
are two extended passages from his work on comparative religion book and his
legal book to give a sense of his writing style. Here in Kitab al-Fasl fi
al-milal Ibn Hazm takes up the issue, which in his time was highly contentious
and divisive, of female prophecy.
The
Qur’ān says that God sent angels to women and informed them with true
revelation (wahy) from God. The mother of Ishaq was given good news of Ishaq
from God. He said, “His wife was standing there and laughed when We gave the
good news to her of (the birth of) Ishaq, and after Ishaq, Yaʿqub. She said,
Woe is me, shall I bear a child when I am an old woman and this is old man is
my husband? This is surely a strange thing. They said, Are you wondering at a
command of God?
God’s
mercy and blessing on you, people of the House [Q 11:71-73]”. So this address
of the angels to the mother of Ishaq from God of good news for her of Ishaq and
then Yaʿqub, then of their statement to her, Are you wondering at a command of God,
it is not at all possible that this address from the angels could be to any but
a prophet of some kind. And we find that God sent Gabriel to Mary mother of
Jesus, on them be peace, with an address. He said to her, “I am a messenger of your
Lord, to give a gift to you of a pure son” [Q 19:19]. This is a trueprophethood
with a true revelation and message from God to her, and
Zakariyah
found her having from God daily sustenance arriving to bless him with her as a
virtuous daughter. And we find with the mother of Moses, on them be peace, that
God
gave revelation to her to cast her child into
the Nile. He informed her that the child would return to her. So He made her a
prophet sent, and this is prophethood, there is no doubt of it. Of intellectual
necessity,anyone with ability to discern will see that if she was not firmly established
with prophethood from God, her throwing her child intothe Nile based on a
vision she had or based on something that arose in herself or some notion that
came up, it would have been the height of insanity and reckless intent; if any
of us did that, it would be the worst
evil or the height of insanity, where it would
be appropriate to treat his mind in a hospital. No one will doubt it. So it is
true, certainly, that the revelation which came to her to cast her child into
the Nile was like therevelation that came to Abraham in a dream to sacrifice
his son. If Abraham was not a prophet firmly established in the prophethood that
came to him to sacrifice his son, he would have sacrificed his son because of a
vision he saw or an idea that occurred to him in himself.
Without
doubt, doing that without prophethood would have been evil of the worst sort,
or insanity in the extreme. This is not doubted byanyone, so their (women’s)
prophethood is certain. The following passage is from al-Mahalla and concerns
the abandoned baby.
Issue:
That a small (child) is found, cast off. It is obligatory that the one in its
presence pick him up, and necessarily so, as God said, “Help each other in
goodness and piety, and do not help each other in offence and enmity” [Q 5:2],
and as God said, “Who saves the life, it is as if he saved the people
altogether”[ Q 5:32]. There is no offense greater than the perishing of a
child’s soul born in Islam, small, having no fault, and then dying hungry, cold,
or eaten by wild dogs. It is authenticated from Messenger, peace be on him,
that “Who is not kind to people, God will not be kind to him.” In a section of
the Mahalla Ibn Hazm discusses the subject of financialsupport (nafaqah) and
entitlement, particularly of the wife from her husband. He expounds the
scholastic doctrine of the four leading madhahib on the point that the husband’s
obligation to support his wife remains undiminished, regardless of the
financial means of the husband and even when the wife was wealthy herself and
owned assets.
He
then writes that “all of them have fallen into error” and proceeds to encapsulate
the spirit of the marital tie in the light of the Qur’anic characterisation of
marriage as “friendship and compassion” mawaddah wa rahmah [Q 30:21].
Ibn Hazm writes that it is also the duty of
the wealthy wife to support her husband in the event the latter is poor and in
need of support. For friendship and compassion cannot be as one-sided as the
existing scholastic interpretations have led us to believe. This was a
refreshingly original contribution yet remained totally neglected under the
weight of hostile responses from both the political and scholastic
personalities of his time.
Ibn
Hazm is famous for his thorough rejection of qiyas, analogicaln reasoning.
Perhaps because analogy was often overextended, Ibn Hazm devoted considerable
effort to identify analogy with human criteria for legal proofs and to refute
it. The most important aspect of his approach is its holistic nature.
Proponents of qiyas might point to “Say not oof to your parents” as being in
need of analogical reasoning to derive a list of things one should not say or
do toward one’s parents. Ibn Hazm’s approach is instead to examine the entire
verse and see that being “toward the parents good” [Q 17:32] is sufficient
instruction. Although he rejected juristic analogy (qiyas), he emphasized
logical demonstration (burhan) as rational means of proof.
KAYNAK:
Ibn Hazm – Critical Originality (iais.org.my, 25 March 2011).
