al-Islam bayna jahl abnaihi wa ajz ulama'ihi
- Author died
- 1373 AH
- Editions
- Al-Ittiḥād al-Islāmī lil-Munaẓẓamāt al-Ṭullābiyyah IIFSO
al-Islam bayna jahl abnaihi wa-ajz ulama'ihi (Islam Between the Ignorance of Its Children and the Incapacity of Its Scholars) is a single-volume treatise by the Egyptian jurist, judge, and legal scholar Abd al-Qadir Awda (d. 1373 AH / 1954 CE), addressing the political and legal marginalization of Islamic law and examining the roles played by Muslim society, ruling elites, and religious scholars in that decline.
Purpose and Scope
Awda composed the treatise as a concise manual for educated Muslims with modern or civil educational backgrounds (al-muta'allimin ta'liman madaniyyan). His stated objectives were to outline the fundamental tenets of Islamic legislation that every educated Muslim ought to know, to refute claims that Islamic law is obsolete or unsuited for state governance, and to prompt Islamic scholars to abandon their passive posture and adopt effective methods in presenting and defending the Sharia.
Structure and Content
The work opens with an introduction and is arranged into three main chapters:
- Introduction (Muqaddima): The author diagnoses the crisis of the modern Muslim world as stemming from ignorance of Islamic law and the uncritical adoption of imported positive legal codes (al-qawanin al-wad'iyya).
- Chapter One: What a Muslim Must Know (Ma yajib ala al-muslim an ya'rifahu): Defines the Sharia as a comprehensive system encompassing creed, worship, personal status, transactions, criminal justice, governance, and international relations. Awda emphasizes that Islam is indivisible and unites religion and state, mosque and leadership, with every human action carrying both temporal effects and otherworldly consequences. He compares divine Sharia with human-made legislation, highlighting three defining attributes of Sharia: perfection (kamal), sublimity (sumuww), and permanence (dawam). He explains that the Sharia enacts universal principles (ahkam kulliyya) and delegates executive (tashri'at tanfidhiyya) and regulatory (tashri'at tanzimiyya) enactments to authorities, provided they do not contradict divine law. He reviews the historical introduction of European legal codes into Muslim lands—citing the Ottoman penal code of 1853 and the Egyptian penal code of 1883—and argues on legal grounds that positive statutes conflicting with Sharia are inherently null and void.
- Chapter Two: The Extent of Muslims' Knowledge of Their Sharia (Mada ilm al-muslimin bi-shari'atihim): Classifies Muslims into three groups regarding legal literacy: the uneducated (ghayr al-muthaqqafin), the Westernized or secularly educated (al-muthaqqafun thaqafatan urubbiyya), and the religiously educated (al-muthaqqafun thaqafatan islamiyya). Awda concentrates on Westernized intellectuals, noting that while they dominate government and professional fields, they rely on foreign legal concepts and traditionalistic textbooks that are difficult for nonspecialists to navigate. He lists and systematically refutes their assertions, including the notions that Islam does not concern governance, that its rules are outdated, or that its application would antagonize foreign powers.
- Chapter Three: Who is Responsible for Our Current State? (Man al-mas'ul amma nahnu fih?): Distributes responsibility among three sectors of the Muslim community:
- The Public (al-jamahir): For drifting into passivity, complacency, and unawareness of their religious duties.
- Heads of State and Governments (ru'asa' al-duwal wa-l-hukumat): For maintaining inherited secular structures, perpetuating regional division, and accommodating foreign colonial hegemony.
- Islamic Scholars (ulama' al-Islam): For failing to confront injustice, neglecting the obligation of enjoining good and forbidding wrong, acquiescing to colonial rule, and mobilizing only for personal privileges and salary increases rather than for the preservation and application of Islamic law. The chapter concludes by acknowledging an steadfast minority among the scholars who remained dedicated to the Quranic mandate.
Reception and Scholarly Discussion
The treatise was widely circulated in modern Islamic literature and underwent numerous printings, notably by the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations (IIFSO), which published its first edition in 1970 and a fifth edition in 1405 AH / 1985 CE.
Scholars have engaged critically with certain historical accounts transmitted in the text. Yusuf al-Qaradawi discussed Awda's claim that Khedive Ismail of Egypt requested scholars from al-Azhar to codify a legal digest derived from Islamic jurisprudence, but that they failed to do so due to sectarian factionalism (al-ta'assub al-madhhabi). Al-Qaradawi noted that, upon source investigation, this report traces back solely to a singular transmission recorded by Rashid Rida from Rafi' ibn Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, questioning its historical certitude and probative value.
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