Collective ijtihad: Fatwas of terrorist organizations weighed on the scales of Sharia

Doaa Emam

Political Islamist groups have spared no effort in distorting the Islamic religion and marketing it as a religious canon that encourages bloodshed and does not respect human beings or their rights. Al-Qaeda and ISIS, and before them the Brotherhood, are still closing the door of ijtihad (jurisprudential reasoning) and are content with their wrong interpretations of the texts and limits, as they question all opinions that express the tolerance of the religion and ease for people, and they even describe scholars and jurists as excessive in the religion.

Their interpretations of many jurisprudential issues, whose rulings have changed with time, was a way to attract and recruit young people looking for the dream of the caliphate, so these terrorist organizations came to them to blaspheme the ruler and describe society as “ignorant” and the rulings and rules of their homelands as circumstantial that their elements should not obey.

In front of the crowds of scholars who came from different countries of the world to attend the 6th International Conference of Egypt’s Dar Al-Iftaa, former Grand Mufti Dr. Ali Gomaa, head of the Religious Committee in the Egyptian House of Representatives and a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, drew attention to the importance of collective ijtihad, bearing in mind that reality has many worlds, including the knowledge of things, people, ideas and events, it must be understood in depth, and the pillars of ijtihad, which are represented in the realization of the text, the realization of reality and the text between the absolute and the relative.

The political Islamist groups do not follow these pillars in interpreting religious texts, instead distorting them and making them a single interpretation that serves their activities and ideas in many issues, the most important of which are jihad, jizya (taxes on non-Muslims) and jurisprudential limits, in addition to their efforts to recruit young people with wrong interpretations that put religion as counter to the homeland, considering them two incompatible opposites.

The collective ijtihad that Gomaa and other scholars mean establishes the concept that Islam is valid for every time and place and that every era has its own emerging issues, with reality needing more efforts, scientific works, and intellectual encyclopedias that gather and limit these developments, then religious institutions clarify the concept of these terms in the balance of the Sharia and the position of Islam towards those who tolerate them and those who traffic in them.

In this regard, Dr. Diab Fathi, professor of Sharia and Law at Al-Azhar University, said that collective ijtihad is the idea on which the jurisprudential councils in all countries are based, as scholars who are well-established in the religious sciences are responsible for responding to false ideas and false jurisprudential rulings promoted by terrorist organizations.

In a statement to the Reference, Fathi pointed out the importance of these councils in adapting legal rulings in a way that takes into account the current reality, pointing out that ijtihad alone is not the solution, but it is necessary to create a state of trust between young people and scholars and to give media space to senior scholars and reformers to clarify everything related to the fatwa and the difference between it and the legal ruling.

Fathi added that Al-Azhar University continues to raise awareness among young people, who are the most targeted by extremist groups, and it also opens channels of communication with students and expatriates who return to their countries with moderate ideas to spread them in their countries.

In turn, Libyan researcher Jibril al-Obaidi indicated that there is a crisis of thought and a lack of treatment of ways of thinking, which caused the production of a wrong approach, granting sanctity to commentary and interpretation and moving away from the sacred text (the Qur’an), which contributed to the interruption of ijtihad and the absence of religious scholars and jurists, and it misled many who were attracted to ISIS and other terrorist groups.