A Call for Coexistence 

Episode 12 

In the name of Allah[1], the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.  Peace and blessings of Allah be upon Prophet Muhammad (SAWS[2]). 

As we continue today with the story of Imam ash-Shafi'y, I would like to ask you a question: what was the first lesson on coexistence in the history of mankind?  Isn’t it so clear that we can find that lesson in the story of the two sons of Adam?  They were two brothers coming from the same parents at the beginning of time when there were no conflicts yet.  However, they reached a state of inability to coexist to the extent that one of them wanted to kill the other!  

If we contemplate the word ‘Other’, we see that it appeared within the story of the sons of Adam as follows: “… (and) it was (graciously) accepted of one of them and not (graciously) accepted of the other. …” (TMQ[3], 5:27).  Although they were brothers, the Qur’an refered to how they see each other as the ‘Other’!  This is when the message of coexistence started on Earth.

If we ponder on the amazing ayah[4] which can be translated as, “O you mankind, surely We created you of a male and a female, and We have made you races and tribes that you may get mutually acquainted. …” (TMQ, 49: 13), we find that Allah gives us the key as to why we are created in such a diversity!  It is to get mutually acquainted.  It is a big umbrella under which we see the meanings of cooperation, understanding, exchange of everything, such as  knowledge, arts, etc.  I doubt that this concept exists in any political conistitution!  The ayah stresses that this diversity should make us acquaint with each other and should not be a reason for segregating ourselves or fighting one another.

It is Allah’s wisdom to create us diverse. The  Qur’an avows to this in the ayah which can be translated as, “And if your Lord had (so) decided, He would indeed have made mankind one nation; and (i.e., but) they do not cease differing (among themselves).

Excepting the ones on whom your Lord has mercy, and He created them for that (end), …” (TMQ, 11:118, 119).  Allah stipulates in this ayah that we are made to be different on purpose. This indeed adds richness and diversity to life.

Regretably, we consider anything which does not match our way of thinking as wrong.  We tend to reject anyone different from us, although differences and diversity add great value to life.  This is the idea we are striving to convey today.  We should try to make the best out of our differences to serve our purposes.

As Muslims, we have a rich culture and a huge resource of information thanks to our many scholars. Let us think of the basic three colors; blue, red and green. Imagine that you can not make combinations of these colors?  It is amazing that the ability to combine and mix those three colors gives us thousands of other shades of colors. If we apply this to our ideas and opinions, the mix and match of ideas gives great meaning, added immense value and richness to life.

Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) gives us two examples of the beauty of being different.  In the first, he (SAWS) likens the support of the believers to one another to the bricks in a wall; they enforce each other.  To build a wall you need bricks, cement and other elements. Each one alone could not form a wall by itself.  However, when you put them together, they build a strong wall.  The second example is on the similitude of believers in regard to mutual love, affection and fellow-feeling; it is that of one body; when any limb of it aches, the whole body aches, because of sleeplessness and fever.  It means that each body part is supportive and at the same time dependant on the other parts.

These two examples are amazing.  To get to our point, in order for you to build a healthy society, you need to connect people via dialogue and tolerance that would promote coexistence.

If we look at Imam ash-Shafi’y and how he bridged the gap among the huge diversity of opinions that existed in his time, we can see that he is true a model for coexistence.  You might be surprised to know that he was inspired by his mother who instilled in him the belief that he could bring people together and encourage them to discard their differences.  

Before starting with the amazing story of Imam ash-Shafi’y, I wish to refer to what was said about him by his contemporaries.  Although Imam Ahmad Ibn-Hanbal was a scholar just like ash-Shafi’y, he did not bear any jealousy to him for being more famous. He admired him and told his son that he would pray for ash-Shafi’y every night as he did to his own parents.  He believed that ash-Shafi’y was important to people just as the sun is to life and health is to the body.  Ash-shafi’y was someone who could fluently speak about science, Islam and its various areas of knowledge, sports, poetry; and he excelled in all of them!  

Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) refered to him in his hadith[5] in which he prayed to Allah (SWT[6]) to rightly guide the people of Quraish whose scholar will one day spread the science (of religion) on earth.  He (SAWS) also said that Allah sends someone to the Ummah (Muslim nation) every 100 years to revive its faith.  There is an agreement that the person sent in the first 100 years was Omar Ibn-Abdul-Aziz.  This is because he spread justice among people. 

It is believed that the person sent in the second century was Imam ash-Shafi’y.  Were it not for him, a big clash of opinions would have happened!  Let us see how he managed to do so.

First, I have to give a brief idea about how life looked like during his time.  He lived at the time when the power of  the Abbassid Caliphate reached its peak; it was during the rule of Haroun ar-Rasheed.  There was a wide spread of the Islamic faith in many countries.  Although this wide spread was great because it meant more power to Islam, it was not without its hazards.  The people of the many countries which became under the shelter of Islam had diverse cultures, views, ethics, values and attitudes.  Some of them did not have good intentions for Islam.  Besides, there was very limited physical connection among countries due to the lack of means of transportation which made it difficult for people to communicate and understand each other.  This meant that various groups of people held different views and beliefs, meanwhile there was very little to do to bridge the gaps among them.

Accordingly, ash-Shafi’y took an approach of immigrating every few years to a different country and living there for a while to fulfill the purpose of connecting people and correcting any misleading ideas they might have. He travelled to ten countries acting as an ambassador of knowledge.  He came at a time when most of the companions of Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) had died, hence there was no one to work on solving the disputes and disagreements which emerged at that time. Meanwhile, there was a large class of wealthy youths who did not care much about their faith.  

Do you know how he approached them?  He tried to find a common ground with them. He excelled in sports because that was the only way to approach that class of youths. 

Furthermore, there was a huge clash which followed the murder of Othman Ibn-Affan that had its impact on everyone.  This was the start of the Shiites Sect, the deniers of Sunnah (Prophetic tradition), and al-Khawarij[7].  There were those who were waiting for a chance to rebel and have their own way.  On the other hand, it was a period that witnessed flourishing of arts that stressed on romance, music and pleasures. So, there was a clash between arts and faith.

Meanwhile, schools of thought appeared that tried to explain the new issues which emerged and were neither mentioned in the Qur’an nor the Sunnah. There were two main schools; the first was the school of Hijaz headed by Imam Malik and the other was the school of Iraq headed by Abu-Hanifa.  Both schools began to clash over issues like ahadith[8] and the way in which they were documented. This was an extremely vital period because it was the early stage of the formation of the Islamic schools of jurisprudence.  Followers of each school begand to offend each other as they disagreed on various issues.  Ash-Shafi’y had a great role in clearing the environment from plights of dissension by approximating the ideas of the two schools and creating harmony between them.

I will give you one example today of how ash-Shafi’y approched the conflict between the two schools of thought: Al-Hijaz’s and Iraq’s.  He simply studied both of them for a long time and then came up with a new arena of research which is the science of the basis of Jurisprudence.  This science is concerened with setting the rules of how to extract knowledge from the Qur’an and the Sunnah.  He spent nine years to formulate this method of logical thinking. Those rules were later transferred to Europe and were used as the base for scientific approaches in various areas of knowledge.

His rules and guidelines were very simple.  First, he based his undersatnding of what is lawful (permissible) and what is unlawful (prohibited) on the simple idea that any ayah of the Qur’an dealing with this issue is aiming at protecting any one of five things: spirit, sanity, faith, money, and honor.  Hence, we can understand the ayahs of Qur’an and the rules that Allah (SWT) set for us by understanding why those rules are there and what they are protecing.

Second, he stressed the imporatnce of sticking to the meanings of words as defined in the Arabic dictionaries and lexicons.  This would prevent misinterpretations of words by some people who seek to change the meaning of some of the ayahs of the Qur’an.

Third, he indicated that when trying to find the solution for an issue, one should first search the ayahs of the Qur’an dealing with that issue and group the related ayahs together and examine them.  If there were no relevant ayahs, then one should follow the same steps with the ahadith.  If none were found, then one should resort to what the companions of the Prophet (SAWS) agreed upon regarding that issue. The last level of analysis of the issue is the application of analogy by trying to find a similar issue in the Qur’an and hence finding the answer.  For instance, the issue of prohibition of drugs. Since there was no mention of drugs in the Qur’an, then one can make a deduction based on how the Qur’an handles the issue of alcohol.  Since alcohol is prohibited because it damages sanity and health, then by analogy, drugs are also prohibited.

Afterwards he submitted his methodology to the two main schools of Islamic jurisprudence and received their approval on using it.  This brought the conflict between the followers of these two schools to an end and minimized potetial clashes between them. He managed to do so because of his dedication to finding common grounds between the conflicting parties.  It is because of his sincere intention to unite people. This is indeed the core of coexistence.

I would like to conclude today’s episode by a request.  Why not think about how you can find a common ground between you and others; between you and your father, your neighbour, etc.