THE SCOPE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD’S IJTIHAD

Islamic scholars have mostly agreed that the Prophet might have made some decisions based solely on his own judgment in matters of technical, i.e. administrative, political and economic affairs or in matters that belonged entirely to worldly affairs. They disagree more on whether or not he had the authority over purely religious matters such as faith, prayers and rituals. According to the majority view, Prophet Muhammad did have the ijtihad authority in matters about which there was no divine revelation, regardless of which domain they belonged to.

We can classify examples of the Prophet’s ijtihads in terms of their essential characteristics as follows:

• Those that pertain to worship and rituals
• Those that concern judicial matters
• Those that are related to matters of war
• Those that pertain to worldly affairs

Worship (Rituals)

Prophet Muhammad sometimes made decisions based on his ijtihad on matters of prayers and worship. One of the best-known examples of this is the matter of the adhan (call to prayer and one of the most important signs of Islam). The Prophet made a decision  that this call should be made to specify the exact times of prayer preventing the damage to people’s worldly interests should they attend a prayer too early as well as avoiding the loss of the other worldly gains in being late to the prayer.

Judicial Matters

Prophet Muhammad himself stated that in matters that pertained to judgments he had made decisions based on his ijtihad taking into consideration the defenses of the two parties and the evidence presented to him for and against a given case. A hadith on this point particularly emphasizes his human side:

“I am only a human being. When a case is presented to me, I might rule in favor of the party who presents his case in a better way, wrongly leading me to think that he is right. In this case, if I gave someone something that in fact belongs to his brother rather than himself, he should not accept it. For the thing that I gave him is nothing but a piece of fire” (Al-Bukhari, “Mazalim” 16, “Ahkam” 29, 31; Muslim, “Aqdiya” 5, 6).

Emphasizing the human side of the Prophet, this hadith clearly indicates that Prophet Muhammad was no different from any other human being in resolving problems judicially. This is because the Prophet could not access the knowledge in the realm of the unknown (ghaib) unless Allah wanted him to; therefore he had to make decisions based on the apparent and circumstantial evidence presented to him.

Matters of War

There are many examples of how Prophet Muhammad used to make a decision on the basis of his ijtihad after consulting with his companions and taking existing conditions into account on matters and strategies of war. An example of such ijtihad is the fact that the Prophet accepted the offer of the companion Sa’d ibn Mu’az to command the army in the Battle of Badr.

Worldly Affairs

It is also a historical fact that from time to time Prophet Muhammad declared his own opinions based on his own experience and judgment on some worldly affairs and that he even made a mistake in some of his ijtihads. The best example of this is the inoculation of date palms in Medina. According to a report when the Prophet went to Medina, he saw that in order to have a better harvest the residents fertilized the date palms by conjoining male and female pollens. He then said that in his opinion this would not work; upon hearing this, the residents of Medina gave up the practice. However, that year the produce turned out to be less than in earlier years. Then the Prophet said that although they should follow him strictly when he made a decision on matters of faith and religion, he was like any one of them when it came to worldly affairs, making decisions based on his own judgment, and added, “You know your worldly affairs better than I do, and I know your religious matters better than you do” (Muslim “Fadail” 139 – 141).

In summary, Prophet Muhammad was a prophet who acted first and foremost under the guidance of divine revelation. Despite this, it is also true that there are some verses in the Quran that emphasize his human features as well as  those indicating  he might make mistakes on some issues.  In addition, he made decisions based on his own judgment and was wrong (at least was not able to choose the better option) in some of these decisions.  As such, it is clear that not all of his sayings and practices were a product of divine revelation. Islamic scholars and jurists have discussed this matter extensively, particularly in books on the Methodology of Islamic jurisprudence. The majority of the ulema (religious scholars) have argued with sound evidence that Prophet Muhammad, like any other Muslim scholar, had the authority of ijtihad and occasionally he actually used it within the limits of his human capacity.

Moreover, as a prophet who was compelled by divine revelation, the Prophet was mostly right in his ijtihad based decisions. Although few, in such cases where he was mistaken, he was often warned by divine revelation and quickly corrected by Allah the Almighty. On the other hand, it is not possible to argue that all the mistakes the Prophet made regarding the purely worldly affairs were corrected by divine revelation, or that such corrections were even necessary. In other words, Allah might not have corrected those related to purely worldly affairs based on expertise and experience like medicine, agriculture and technology. However, this does not affect his status as the Messenger of Allah.