Shah Waliullah and Following the Four Schools

 بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

يا نبي سلام عليك

Shah Waliullah of Delhi (1703-1762) was surely the Mujaddid of the 12th century AH.

Not only the orthodox Sunni Muslims, but even many Wahhabis, Salafis, Deobandis and ghayr muqallidin—so called Ahl al-Hadith—acknowledge him as a great scholar of Islam. 

The latter may be under the mistaken impression that Shah Waliullah rejected or preached against taqlid, the strict following of one of the four schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii, Hanbali). Nothing could be further from the truth. Shah Waliullah says:

اعْلَم أَن فِي الْأَخْذ بِهَذِهِ الْمذَاهب الْأَرْبَعَة مصلحَة عَظِيمَة وَفِي الْإِعْرَاض عَنْهَا كلهَا مفْسدَة كَبِيرَة

“Know that taking from these four Madhhabs brings great benefit, while turning away from each of them is a great corruption.” (Iqd ul-Jid, Dar ul-Kutub Peshawar, p.40)

Shah Waliullah goes on to argue essentially that for a madhhab in jurisprudence to be valid it must be connected to the early generations of Islam which took from the Prophet, peace be upon him, and his Companions. We come to know of the Sharia through transmission, from generation to generation, going back to the time of the Salaf. It is therefore not valid to invent a new madhhab or fiqh that is disconnected from this tradition. Shah Waliullah affirms that in our time only the four schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii, Hanbali) fulfill the criteria for validity:

وَلَيْسَ مَذْهَب فِي هَذِه الْأَزْمِنَة الْمُتَأَخِّرَة بِهَذِهِ الصّفة إِلَّا هَذِه الْمذَاهب الْأَرْبَعَة اللَّهُمَّ إِلَّا مَذْهَب الإمامية والزيدية وهم أهل الْبِدْعَة لَا يجوز الِاعْتِمَاد على أقاويلهم

“And there is no madhhab in these later times with this characteristic except these four Madhhabs, except for the madhhab of the Imamiyyah and Zaydiyyah, but they are innovators, and it is not permissible to rely on their pronouncements.” (Ibid, p.41)

Shah Waliullah justifies this view by quoting a Hadith:

قَالَ رَسُول الله صلى الله عَلَيْهِ وَسلم اتبعُوا السوَاد الْأَعْظَم وَلما اندرست الْمذَاهب الحقة إِلَّا هَذِه الْأَرْبَعَة كَانَ اتباعها اتبَاعا للسواد الْأَعْظَم وَالْخُرُوج عَنْهَا خُرُوجًا عَن السوَاد الْأَعْظَم

“The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessing of Allah be upon him, said: ‘Follow the Sawad al-Azam’. And when the valid Madhhabs disappeared except for these four, following them is following the Sawad al-Azam, and exiting from them is exiting from the Sawad al-Azam.” (Ibid)

The term Sawad al-Azam, literally the great blackness, refers to the majority or main collective of the Muslims. Salvation is in sticking with the Sawad al-Azam, whereas deviation and misguidance is to break away from it and follow one’s own lonely path or join one of the schismatic factions which departed from the flock. Shah Waliullah, may Allah have mercy on him, was right when he said that leaving one of the four Madhhabs is akin to departing from the Sawad al-Azam and is therefore deviation.

In the early days of Islam there were many other Madhhabs and Mujtahids, but over time only four of them, which were undoubtedly the best of them, persisted and survived. Among the schools that perished was the school of al-Layth bin Sad, the school of Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, the school of al-Awzai, the school of Sufyan al-Thawri, the school of Ishaq bin Rahwayh and other schools and jurists qualified to make ijtihad. It is no use for people today to resort back to those opinions and rulings of theirs which are not validated by any of the four Madhhabs which remain.

Likewise, it is not valid to follow a madhhab of the non-Sunnis, such as the so-called Jafari school, the Zaydi school, the Ibadi school or even the Zahiri school. With regard to the Jafari school, the Shiites have named it that but in reality it cannot authentically be attributed to the great Imam Jafar al-Sadiq, who was a Sunni but the Shiites have attributed many falsehoods to him. As for the Zahiri school, its principles and views are manifestly incorrect and Sunni scholarship is in agreement as to the invalidity of that school of thought.

There is a trend nowadays to revive the Zahiri school, which in many matters radically departs from the Sunni consensus, including its rejection of taqlid and its rejection of qiyas (analogical reasoning). The Zahiri approach tends to be favored by some segments of the Salafi movement, and many other ghayr muqallidin.

It is observed that in our time, especially among the youth, there is a growing but dangerous trend of total disregard for taqlid and disregard for following the traditionalist Sunni Ulama who take from one of the four Madhhabs. Instead, unqualified and ignorant people are issuing fatwa irresponsibly, contributing to the current chaos and confusion witnessed in the Ummah today.

The motive for this deviation from the Sunni scholastic tradition and the four Madhhabs is due to the venomous influence of modernity and sentiments associated with liberalism and feminism. Simplistic slogans such as “follow the Quran” or “follow the Quran and Sunnah” cause many Muslims to seek to reinvent the wheel by taking directly from the texts of the Quran and Hadith, which in legal matters are extremely complex. The result is that without proper qualifications in the sciences of the Religion, without proper training and without a valid license gifted to one from a licensed expert in Shariah with a chain going back to the Prophet, peace be upon him, these freethinkers and non-conformists have led a large number of simple minded people astray.

It is, therefore, understandable why these mischievous freethinkers and non-conformists appeal to the Zahiri methodology, which favors a literal interpretation of the texts of Quran and Hadith without any regard for the rich scholastic and legal tradition.