Refutation Of Those Who Do Not Follow The Four Schools pdf download

Refutation of Those Who Do Not Follow The Four Schools

Refutation Of Those Who Do Not Follow The Four Schools – Al-Radd ‘alā Man Ittaba‘ Ghayr al- Madhāhib al-Arba‘a Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbali Translation & Notes by Musa Furber

REFUTATION OF THOSE WHO DO NOT FOLLOW THE FOUR SCHOOLS

He says:

Someone’s rebuke has reached me: a rebuke for my censuring people today who affiliate with the school of Imām Aḥmad or another famous Imam, yet depart from their school in issues. He claimed that someone who does this is not to be reprimanded since he might be a mujtahid2 following what appeared to him to be the truth or emulating another mujtahid, and that this, therefore, is not held against him.

So I say, and success is only with Allah; He is the One sought for help, reliance is upon Him, and there is no strength nor power except through Allah:

There is no doubt that Allah Most High has protected for this community its religion, protection He has given none other.

There is no prophet after this community to renew what has vanished from its religion, as it was for the religions of the prophets before us: whenever one vanished, another prophet would come after him to renew it.

Allah Majestic guaranteed protection for this religion and affirmed that in every age there would be an offensive to expel from it the corruption of the extremists, tricks of the nullifiers, and interpretations of the ignorant.

Allah Most High said, Indeed We sent down the Remembrance and indeed We are protective of it (Quran, 15:9), guaranteeing protection for His book. Thus, no one has been able to add to or remove from it a single phrase.

Protecting the Quran

During his time, the Prophet ﷺ recited the Qur’ān to his community using different ‘modes of recitation’ [ḥurūf] to make it easy for them to memorize and learn it.

His community included old men and women, young boys and girls, and men who had never read a single book. So, for their sake he ﷺ sought facilitation for them memorizing it, reciting to them with seven modes of recitation [ḥurūf], just as it is related in the hadith of Ubay bin Ka‘b and others.

Then when the word of Islam spread in regions and the Muslims separated to distant lands, each group of them began reciting the Qur’ān according to the mode of recitation that had reached them.

They differed in the modes of recitation of the Qur’ān and when they gathered during Hajj or other events, they differed greatly in [the pronunciation of some words in] the Qur’ān.

During ‘Uthmān’s time, the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ agreed to gather the community on one mode of recitation, from fear that this community would disagree in its book as the previous communities had.

They realized that public interest required it, and they burned the maṣāḥif of every other mode of recitation.

 This was one of the good qualities for which ‘Alī, Ḥudhayfa, and the prominent companions praise the Commander of the Faithful, ‘Uthmān (may Allah be pleased with them).

During the time of the Prophet ﷺ ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased

with him) fiercely criticized Hishām bin Ḥakīm bin Ḥizām over one verse, and ascribe who wrote revelation for the Prophet ﷺ whose faith was not firmly rooted in his heart recanted because of this until he died an apostate.

What shall we assume of the community after him ﷺ, if there had remained between them differences in pronouncing the Qur’ān?

So because of this, the community’s scholars of recitation abandoned everything other than the mode of recitation ‘Uthmān gathered the Muslims under. Some of them made a dispensation in it:

 an opinion is related from Aḥmad and Mālik, with their difference of opinion whether it is in prayer or other things, or prayer only.

In any case: The community does not disagree that if someone recited a canonical reading [like Ibn Mas‘ūd’s] disagreeing with this agreed-upon muṣḥaf and claimed that the mode of recitation he recited is that of Zayd bin Thābit over which ‘Uthmān gathered the community,

or claimed that it was more worthy of recitation than Zayd’s mode of recitation: then he is unjust, overstepping bounds, and deserving of punishment. Concerning this, no two Muslims disagree.

Indeed, the area of disagreement is if he reads with a letter like Ibn Mas‘ūd’s despite acknowledging that it is the letter of Ibn Mas‘ūd which disagrees with the muṣḥaf of ‘Uthmān (may Allah be pleased with them).

Preserving the Sunna