Fiqh

Jafar as- Sadiq 80 or 83 A.H. - 148 A.H

• He carried the responsibilities of Ahlul-Bayt i.e. he was the leader of the descendants of Ali and their supporters

• He came after three tragic events.

• Martyrdom of Karbala

• Brutal killing of Zaid who was burnt, mutilated and the ash was withered so that no tomb of his can ever be visited

• Mohammad ibn Al Nafs al Zakiyah a great Shia Imam

• He was raised when the law of the land was to end the Friday sermon by cursing Ali ibn Talib and his family, until the Umayyad Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz said it is haram and replace it with what we say now i.e. “Verily, God commands justice and kindness and giving to relatives and He forbids indecency, objectionable actions and extremism. God instructs you that you may be reminded.”

• He was extensively educated not only in language and poetry, but also in physics, medicine and mathematics.

• His student was Jabir bin Hayyan who invented sulphuric acid. The scientists of the modern world know Jabir bin Hayyan as “Geber”, the greatest Arab chemist and the forerunner of all those who have studied in the field of chemistry.

• Jafar believed strongly in debate methodology. He was successful in doing that.

• He was a man of integrity, a man of peace. He recognized clearly that opposing Umayyad is suicidal and hence he developed a methodology called at-takiyah (self-preservation by getting along with the power or the majority of it will avoid harming oneself), which considers it is okay to show one’s support or even speak for the government even though one does not really approve it.

• He is of the opinion that in order to maintain life, destruction of life is not the solution.

• He lived through the age of the end of Umayyad and the rise of Abbasids. The Abbasids killed all those who claimed to be Umayyad and later they became worse than Umayyad.

• He said life has to be enjoyed. He himself dressed nicely, perfumed well, brushed his hair, and had best food. He was also rich.

• He stood very strongly against irrational thinking.

• He said one should not be part of the government and it will lead to destruction.

• He was against predestined philosophy. He was against ascetism.

• He started the earliest interfaith activities, both dialogues and debates.

• His students were Imam Malik and Imam Abu Hanifa.

• After his death, the Shia madahib developed with most of Imam Jafar particularly, at-takiyah methodology of not participating in government until Ayatollah Khomeini who broke this tradition recently by the Islamic Revolution in 1979 A.D.

• Jafar’s grandfather from his mother’s side is Abu Bakr while the other grandfather from his father’s side is Hussein.


Zaid

• Zaidis also say that they do not rule, but consider fighting against tyranny is a faridah i.e. a religious duty.

• This school of thought is predominant in Yemen.


Abu Hanifa 80 A.H. - 150 A.H.

• Abu Hanifa lived during the same period as Jafar as-Sadiq.

• He lived in Al-Kufa, a society that was not familiar with Arabic.

• He was a Persian in origin and spoke Persian.

• He had an aversion to tyranny of Ummayad.

• He was in love with Ahlul-Bayt, but did not believe in bloodline of the Prophet (Pbuh).

• He was greatly affected by his mother.

• He wanted peace although there was a rumor that he was going to go on a war against Umayyad.

• He was a businessman. A man who is a businessman will be less theoretical and more practical. He was also rich like Jafar as-Sadiq.

• He owned a store of silk and velvet, which was a very expensive stuff.

• His methodology was to depend on Qur’an. There were not very many hadith circulating at his
place in Basra, but lots of fatwas. He is believed to have used only 17 hadiths. He depended extensively on qiyas (analogy) to fill the gap.

• He was fair to women in most of his opinions.

• An adult woman should marry herself instead of through wali, who is a person in charge of contracting on her behalf, usually the father or the male next in kin.

• In his opinion, no one should be put under custody. He considered imprisoning a person who has not proven guilty as unacceptable.

• He also had some interesting opinions.

• Woman is qualified for all positions including judge.

• Suspicion does not cancel certainty. i.e. ablution is still valid when one is not sure.

• The imam who leads the prayer can read and the followers do not have to read in prayer.

• Abu Hanifa was offered a judge position, which he refused.

• He was not accepting a position for the state.

• He was against accepting gift from the state. Those who disliked Abu Hanifah whispered to Caliph Al-Mansour that Abu Hanifa should be made to accept gift. He was put in jail until he was about to die. He was released due to the fear of revolution, but he died soon after his release and it was believed that he was poisoned before his release.

• Later Abu Yusuf, the student of Abu Hanifa was appointed as judge in the Caliphate. And he was the one who said in order to be a judge, a person should accept Abu Hanifah and paved way to the evolution of Hanafi madahib.

• Hanafi madahib spread to Iraq, Cypress, Egypt and India.

Differences of opinion on intellectual issues, and - by extension - on juristic ones as well, are natural on account of the inherent disparities in intelligence, understanding, and analytic capacity with which people are created. If we accept that this statement is valid, then we must also accept that differences of opinion between several Companions during the time of the Prophet and the rightly-guided Khulafaa’ did occur, and these have been well documented. We would be doing a disservice to this religion if we denied this phenomenon. By the same token, we do not regard an open discussion of these differences as detracting from the purity of the Islamic message or from the sincere intention of those Companions who had differences. Indeed we can say that in mentioning these differences openly we are in fact testifying to the objective reality and validity of the Islamic religion.


Islam treats people on the basis that they are human beings who, because of a variety of factors, are often at variance with the naturally pure state in which they were created. What is comforting to the believer, however, is that the differences of opinion among the Companions did not spring from weakness in belief (‘aqeedah) or any skepticism as to the truth of the Prophet’s teachings. Instead, they resulted from a genuine desire to ascertain the truth through patient investigation and discover the purpose of the Lawgiver.