The Third Stage: Building (The Century of the Umayyad Dynasty)

The Umayyad Dynasty was founded by Muawiya, the competitor of Ali ibn abi Talib, who was from the Umayyah clan. It lasted for about a century, all the way up until the middle of 8CE.

This period is noted for social unrest. The Caliphate was turned into Kingship, although it was still called a caliphate. Innovations in the religion had been introduced, the result of which caused the scholars to refuse to sit in the audience of the rulers.

There was a greater increase in the efforts of Ijtihad since Ijmaa had become difficult with the scattering of the scholars. Narrations of the Hadith became widespread, and a result of this fabrication of the Hadith also took place.

During this period, the first attempts of compiling Fiqh and Islamic law took place. The general signs of Madh’habism were also beginning to show at this point.

Factors which affected the evolution of Fiqh during this period:

1) Division of the Ummah – Rise of Factions

The Khawarij and the Shi’a arose at this time, one a reaction to the other.

Another political faction that developed was that of Abdullah bin Zubayr, who vied with the Caliph of his time for leadership. He didn’t give Bay’ah to him, and many people gave Bay’ah to Abdullah bin Zubayr. He based his caliphate in Makkah. It was like a counter caliphate going on at the same time. But this was a pure political difference, he was not calling to anything else. They were a mere factor in the turmoil of the times.

Although the splits with the Khawarij and the Shi’a were basically theological, as these developed and became actual full blown movements, a Fiqh started to develop around it, distinguishing it from the main body of Muslims. It affected the development of Fiqh in mainstream islam by them taking alternative approaches to understanding the Qur’an and Sunnah. They had to reinterpret the Qur’an and Sunnah to suit their own purposes; either to justify their theological differences, or to support their Fiqh rulings which distinguished them from the rest of the Ummah.

E.g. AlMajlisi (One of the leading Fiqh scholars amongst the Shi’a) states in his book that visiting Karbala was equivalent to 14 Hajj’s. He is going from an ideological concept of Karbala being the place where Hussain was killed to a Fiqh issue of going on pilgrimage to Karbala.

2) Deviation of the Ummayyad Caliphs

They introduced practices which were unknown in the early times.

E.g. Bayt alMal.

The Umayyad Caliphs eventually turned that into their personal treasury.

E.g. They also introduced additional taxes to increase their income. You find them sanctioning music, dancing girls, astrologers, etc. These were all forms of amusement of the Caliph and the courtiers. This is where the entertainment industry developed.

As the society became decentralized then entertainment shifted from entertainment of the ruler to entertainment of the masses. You had generations of masses whose lives were dedicated to entertaining.

This doesn’t have a place in Islam. It became introduced in the period in which caliphate degenerated. They adopted thrones to sit down, etc.

The transformation of caliphate into kingship began with Mua’wiyah insisting that his son Yazid became caliph after him. But these act itself is not necessarily an act of Kingship, because Ibn Umar was suggested to be caliph after Umar bin Khattab. Umar bin Khattab made a personal decision not to have another Caliph from his own family.

3) Dispersion of the scholars
The Caliphs would seek to get the scholars approval of the things they were doing. To avoid being forced to make untrue rulings, the scholars fled. The link between the scholars and the caliph was thus broken.

E.g. There was a ruling given that whoever broke the oath of allegiance which was given to the Caliphs then they would be automatically divorced from their wives. Leading scholars of that time, like Imam Malik rejected this. There is no sanction for this in the Sharee’ah, the divorce wouldn’t be valid.

In order to not have this new manipulated Fiqh dominate the whole realm of Islamic law, Scholars took it upon themselves to start to compile the rulings of the earlier generation under whom they studied. The compilation of Fiqh began during that period.

The scholars went elsewhere, to the neighbouring cities that weren’t strongly influenced by the Ummayyad Caliphs. When they did that, establishing Ijmaa became virtually impossible.

When the scholars went out to various areas they functioned mostly based on Ijtihad. It was in this period we see a rise of different schools of laws.

4) Fabrications of Hadith

Because there was no Ijma’a the scholars had to rely on the Qur’an which they memorized or on as many hadiths as they could get their hands on. They had to be well rounded in order to make correct legal rulings in that regard.

The narration of Hadiths proliferated at this time. Those deviant sects introduced fabricated Hadiths to support their own claims. Therefore there was a rise of Hadith fabrication. 

On one hand the fabrication of Hadith was negative, on the other hand it was positive in that it stimulated and generated the science known as the science of Hadith methodology. It became necessary for the scholars to be able to classify the various nations that were circulating and put them in a context they could work with, as only authentic Hadith could be used to build Fiqh rulings.

A number of hadiths did slip by and end up in the rulings of the scholars of that time. You had them developing false fiqh, fiqh based on fabricated hadith.

General Characteristics of Fiqh in this era:

1) There was a group who were literalists (those who took the Hadith texts as they were without trying to delve in them based on (17:36):

They were called Ahlul Hadith at that time. They dealt with practical Fiqh, with issues that actually existed.

2) Another group which developed came from the scholars who felt that all of the laws had reasons behind them. They believed that these reasons were accessible if people strove to understand them. They would try to look into the principles implied by the Hadiths, and then try to apply it by way of deduction. They became to be known as the People of Opinion/Reasoning. 

They promoted a development of hypothetical Fiqh, where you are determining rulings for things which have no existed, do not exist, but might exist sometime in the future.

Those who were involved in hypothetical Fiqh were focused in Kufa and they used to commonly raise the question, “What if such and such were to occur” so they became to be known as the What ifers (Alaraytaiyoon)

Both were trends were sanctioned by the Prophet, and are good as long as one doesn't go into extremes. 

Reasons for differences: The socio-political environments these schools grew up in.

The people in the Hijaz (Western coast of Arabia) had a quiet development, they were away from the capital and the politics, etc. It was where the Prophet lived, the major companions lived, the rulings were known and handed throughout the generations. There was an abundance of Hadith and there was a lot of useful fiqh.

Only a few companions ended up in Iraq.There wasn’t that wealth of knowledge, and Hadith was limited. Due to fabricated Hadith, they had to put specific requirements in order for a Hadith to be accepted, and thus relied more on reasoning than Hadith. 

Compilation of Fiqh: 

In the time of the righteous Caliphs the decisions were made by them and there was a lot of Shoora. But this wasn’t being recorded. They saw their decisions as temporary and not a methodology.

During this era of building, the rulings of earlier scholars were being systematically recorded, because of the fact that the caliphate had deviated and were introducing innovations, it thus beame necessary to protect what was handed down from the earlier generations.

A compilation of their fatwas have made, but the manuscripts and early writings did not survive. Those who studied under them knew the rulings, however, and passed them along with the Hadith that narrated, and you see them showing up in the later books of Hadith.

Not all the Ummayyad Caliphs were corrupt. Umar ibn AbdulAziz was a Caliph following the same methodology of the righteous caliphs. When he took over, he returned Bayt alMal to the people and forbade his family any access to it. That period of time was a mirror image of the time of the righteous caliphs. We are just giving an overall generalization about what happened during the Umayyad Caliphate. It is closer to the end that corruption began to occur on a bigger scale, due to the imitation of other rulers.