The frequency that canned oversimplifications like “Islam always takes the middle position” “Truth always lies in the middle position” are now given as foundations or integral supports for arguments related …
Someone asked me about the following statement: “One act of zina is less sinful than watching ten seconds of porn” Here are just four cars involved in this trainwreck: Punishments …
Read moreComment: “One act of zina is less sinful than watching ten seconds of porn”
Dismissing an argument that follows the form X leads to haram-Y what leads to the haram is haram therefor X is haram for no reason other than “X doesn’t always …
Read moreDismissing blocking-the-means just for lack of certainty
A friend who is teaching Infamies of the Soul asked for additional resources and general advice on teaching the book. I don’t have a lot of advice, but here goes: …
Someone recently asked me to review a piece where a contemporary figure dismisses one of Imam al-Nawawi’s opinions simply because the Imam’s argument includes mention of consensus, and that consensus …
Read moreDismissing specific claims of consensus on the grounds that “Consensus is a weak argument”
(n.b. The content for this article comes from a short class on legal maxims, presented in 2014. It provides more information than the earlier article on the abuse of customs.) …
One of the patterns you’ll see later legal scholars use in arguments is that “means having the legal status of ends” (للوسائل حكم المقاصد). It’s especially common when objectives of …
One of the patterns you’ll see in later Shafiʿis books is that when introducing a topic’s foundation evidence, the author will say “The foundation for it, prior to consensus is …
🎶 fa la la la la, la la la la Since it’s trendy to throw around contemporary customs (ʿurf) to override and abandon what we find in fiqh books, it seems …
(n.b. The reasoning behind the rulings, maxims, and objectives mentioned here is covered in my various books and Tabah Research papers. This started as a short, spur of the moment …