Question
I came across the following in an email attachment. I would like to know if Shāfiʿī fuqahāʾ hold this view. Also, what is the reasoning behind it? Jazākallahu khayran!
Here is the excerpt from the email attachment (attributed to Dr. Zakir Naik).
Imam Shafi‘i said that when a women touches a man who is in a state of wudhu, the wudhu of the man breaks. However, this ruling of Imam Shafi‘i contradicts the authentic saying of the Prophet. Narrated (by) Aishah: The Prophet (may peace be upon him) kissed one of his wives and went out for saying prayer. He did not perform ablution. (Sunan Abu Dawood Vol. 1 Chapter No. 70 Hadith No. 179)
Thus this particular teaching of Imam Shafi‘i contradicts the authentic saying of the Prophet. So I reject this specific ruling of Imam Shafi‘i who himself said, “If I say something, then compare it to the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His messenger; if it agrees to them, then accept it, and that which goes against them, then reject it and throw my saying against the wall.” This is a saying of ash-Shafi’ee-rahimaullah. See Al-Majmoo’ of an-Nawawee (1/63).
Thus by rejecting this particular teaching of Imam Shafi‘i which contradicts the authentic hadith, I am practically a better follower of Imam Shafi than those who call themselves “Shafi‘i”.
Answer
The excerpt which you quote is very significant in that it bespeaks of a tendency that is at once welcome and worrisome. It is welcome on account of the fact that it indicates a desire to live as close as possible to the Qurʾān and the Sunnah; but worrisome since it initially oversimplifies matters of considerably complexity, and subsequently develops into the passing of judgement by persons that, if truth be told, are vastly unqualified for that task. In asserting as he does that the ḥadīth cited is authentic, and that al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī is guilty of contradicting it, the good doctor—if it is indeed he who is the author of the excerpt—has certainly overstepped the boundaries of his expertise. It would be easy enough to accept without question a ruling of authenticity by some scholar or the other, but that in itself would be an act of blind imitation—the very same unquestioning taqlīd which is so strongly condemned by the opponents of madhāhib.
Authenticity
It appears to escape his attention that the authenticity of the ḥadīth which he cites has been questioned by the greatest of ḥadīth scholars. Aside from al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī the authenticity of this ḥadīth has been called into question by a number of eminent muḥaddithīn, both on the basis of the identity of the ʿUrwah who narrates the ḥadīth from Sayyidah ʿĀʾishah raḍiyaLlāhu ʿanhā, at times on grounds of a problem with continuity in the chain between the narrator Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit and ʿUrwah. Many of the muḥaddithīn were of the opinion that this ʿUrwah is not the famous ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, the nephew and pupil of Sayyidah ʿĀʾishah, but an unknown person known as ʿUrwah al-Muzanī; and quite a few were of the persuasion that Ḥabīb did not hear this ḥadīth from ʿUrwah. It has even been suggested by some experts that one of the narrators confused the ḥadīth of kissing not invalidating the fast, with kissing not invalidating wuḍūʾ. Here follows a list of ḥadīth critics and their criticism against this ḥadīth:
Al-Bukhārī: His student al-Tirmidhī states: “I heard Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl [al-Bukhārī] declaring this ḥadīth as weak. He said: ‘Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit [one of the narrators in the chain] did not hear [ḥadīth] from [his purported source] ʿUrwah'” (Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī no. 86).
Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān: He denounced two of Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit’s narrations as “akin to nothing.” This ḥadīth one of the two (cited by Abū Dāwūd, al-Sunan nos. 179-180).
Al-Tirmidhī: After narrating the ḥadīth he states: Our companions (i.e. the scholars of ḥadīth) have abandoned the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah on this issue because it is not authentic due to the state of its chain of narration (Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī no. 86).
Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn: When asked by his pupil ʿAbbās al-Dūrī about the status of Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit he declared him as a reliable narrator, but pointed at two of his aḥādīth as defective. One of the two is this ḥadīth (cited by al-Bayhaqī, Maʿrifat al-Sunan wa al-Āthār vol. 1 p. 216, al-Dhahabī, Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ vol. 5 p. 290, and al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-Kamāl vol. 5 p. 362).
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī: Ibn Abī Ḥātim states: “I heard my father say: ‘The ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah on not making wuḍūʾ due to kissing, i.e. the ḥadīth of al-Aʿmash from Ḥabīb from ʿUrwah, is not authentic'” (Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-ʿIlal no. 110).
Sufyān al-Thawrī: This ḥadīth was mentioned to Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd and he said: “Sufyān al-Thawrī amongst all men knew this matter best. He claimed that Ḥabīb did not hear any [ḥadīth] from ʿUrwah” (cited by al-Dāraquṭnī, al-Sunan vol. 1 p. 139). He also stated that the ʿUrwah from whom Ḥabīb narrates the ḥadīth is not ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, but the unknown ʿUrwah al-Muzanī (cited by Abū Dāwūd, al-Sunan nos. 179-180).
Al-Dāraquṭnī: In his Sunan al-Imām al-Dāraquṭnī points out the defects of all the various versions of the ḥadīth. He also points out how the ḥadīth of invalidating fasting came to be confused with the ḥadīth of invalidating wuḍūʾ (al-Dāraquṭnī, al-Sunan vol. 1 pp. 135-145).
Al-Bayhaqī: After pointing out the defects in the chain of the ḥadīth he states that the authentic version of the ḥadīth concerns the invalidation of fasting, but that some unreliable narrators reshaped it into the invalidation of wuḍūʾ. He also states that had the ḥadīth about invalidating fasting been authentic, he would certainly have followed it (al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-Kubrā vol. 1 pp. 126-127).
Divided opinion
The above does not mean, however, that there has been consensus upon the weakness of the ḥadīth. Other experts (e.g. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr) were of the opinion that the ḥadīth is passably authentic. Serious students of the subject would know that the process of authentication does not always lead to clear and unambiguous outcomes. While it is quite true that it often yields an unequivocal result, either of authenticity or otherwise, it is equally true that there sometimes ensues a situation of divided opinion, with some scholars accepting, and some rejecting authenticity. The present ḥadīth happens to be one such case. The difficulty of passing decisive and unambiguous judgment on the authenticity of this particular ḥadīth can well be gauged from the fact that even the late Shaykh al-Albānī fell victim to equivocation on the issue. In his Daʿif Sunan Abī Dāwūd (p. 16) he lists the ḥadīth as unauthentic; while in Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan Abī Dāwūd (p. 36) and Daʿīf Sunan al-Tirmidhī (no.75) he takes the diametrically opposite view. One cannot help wondering how the good doctor was able to make an absolutely decisive judgement on this ḥadīth when even al-Albānī appears to have been unsure.
Contradiction
From the aforementioned it becomes clear that the charge of contradicting the ḥadīth which is leveled against al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī is based upon nothing but blind acceptance of one opinion in a disputed case. Al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī was most certainly aware of the ḥadīth, but like al-Bukhārī, al-Tirmidhī, Sufyān al-Thawrī, Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd and others, he was not convinced of its authenticity, and therefore he made a conscious and informed decision not to employ it to restrict the generality of Allah’s words in the verse of wuḍūʾ: “or you touched women (5:6).” Thus, in step with eminent fuqahāʾ of the Ṣaḥābah such as Sayyidunā ʿAbdullah ibn Masʿūd and Sayyidun ʿAbdullah ibn ʿUmar raḍiyaLlāhu ʿanhum, he asserted that this verse covers even a man’s act of kissing his wife, and as such this act would render his wuḍūʾ invalid.
The Shāfiʿī Madhhab and ḥadīth
Al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī’s well-documented instruction to abandon his madhhab in favour of authentic ḥadīth has always been a matter of special pride for the fuqahāʾ of his madhhab, and while similar statements have been recorded from the other imāms as well, it was amongst the Shāfiʿī fuqahāʾ more than anyone else that this instruction blossomed into practical application.
However, they understood well enough that this instruction was conditioned by a number of parameters. Had the author of this excerpt actually consulted al-Imām al-Nawawī’s al-Majmuʿ Sharḥ al-Muhadhdhab which he cites as his source for al-Imām al-Shafiʿī’s statement, he would have found a full discussion of these parameters. Al-Imām al-Nawawī states:
What al-Shāfiʿī states here does not mean that anyone who sees an authentic ḥadīth can say, “This is the [proper] view of al-Shāfiʿī,” and [can therefore proceed to] practice upon its apparent [meaning]. It is only for one who possesses the ability of ijtihād within the madhhab… or something close to it. [Furthermore] it is subject to the condition that one be reasonably convinced that al-Shāfiʿī was not aware of the ḥadīth or did not know it to be authentic. This [level of knowledge] can only be [acquired] after perusing all of al-Shāfiʿī’s works, a similar amount of works of his immediate students, and other similar works. This is a difficult condition, and few are those who fulfil it. The condition which we mentioned was stipulated only because [it is known that] al-Shāfiʿī desisted from practising upon many aḥādīth which he saw and knew, due to the fact that he had evidence which indicated that those aḥādīth were somehow impugned, abrogated, particularised, or subject to interpretation.
It appears however that the doctor, for reasons of his own, preferred to use secondary or tertiary sources where the quotation is given in isolation of its parameters.
One of the most obvious parameters is that the ḥadīth on the basis of which a person decides to abandon al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī’s view has to be authentic. The contentiousness of the claim of authenticity has already been discussed. Suffice to say here that when al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī himself has discarded the ḥadīth as unauthentic (as al-Bayhaqī indicates in Maʿrifat al-Sunan wa al-Āthār vol. 1 p. 215) it is certainly unbecoming of a well-intentioned scholar to state that he “rejects” Imām al-Shāfiʿī’s view because the imām “contradicts the authentic ḥadīth.”
Another parameter is that the person who abandons the view of the madhhab in favour of the authentic ḥadīth should at least be suitably qualified to do so. There is certainly no intention of withholding anyone from practicing upon authentic aḥādīth, whether he is personally qualified to do so or whether he merely depends upon the opinion of a suitably qualified scholar other than himself. But when it comes to pointing fingers of criticism at our great mujtahid imāms and blatantly accusing them of contradicting aḥādīth, one would think that an intelligent man would know better than to pit his extremely imperfect grasp of matters against the universally acclaimed erudition of the great imams.
Leaving the bounds of the madhhab
There will inevitably be instances where followers of a particular madhhab come face to face with aḥādīth to which their madhhab apparently does not conform. What is to be done in such cases? Should the person summarily abandon the teaching of the madhhab in favour of the ḥadīth? Or should he dutifully stick to the madhhab and ignore the ḥadīth?
Neither of these two approaches is free from certain undesirable outcomes. The fuqahāʾ of our madhhab have therefore resolved the issue in a most ingenious manner that addresses both the praiseworthy desire to practice upon the ḥadīth and the apprehension that this may lead to chaotic fiqh. In his introduction to al-Majmūʿ (vol. 1 p. 136) al-Imām al-Nawawī provides us with the following guidelines:
Any Shāfiʿī who finds a hadith going against his madhhab should look into the matter [as follows]: If he possesses the complete requirements of ijtihād without restriction, or in that chapter, or [even] in that point [alone], he may independently practice upon [the ḥadīth]. If he does not [possess it] and finds it difficult to go against the ḥadīth, and his search for a valid explanation of the ḥadīth[within his madhhab] does not provide a convincing solution, then he may practice upon the ḥadīth with one condition, which is that another independent [mujtahid] imām other than al-Shāfiʿī should have practiced upon it. This would then be a valid pretext for him to leave the madhhab of his imam.
It is of interest here to note that all the other major schools of thought have, with varying degrees of moderation, looked upon skin contact between male and female as nullifying wuḍūʾ. The Ḥanbalīs and Mālikīs add the condition of deriving pleasure from such contact, while the Ḥanafīs regard only such contact to nullify the wuḍūʾ whereby there is mutual touching of the sexual organs without penetration. It should be admitted, though, that this position of the Ḥanafī Madhhab is not founded upon the verse that speaks of touching women, but rather upon the contention that such touching almost invariably leads to the emission of fluid, which in itself is factor that nullifies the wuḍūʾ.
The idea behind following madhāhib is not to turn people into prisoners of their madhāhib, but rather to facilitate practicing upon the Qurʾān and the Sunnah. No madhhab has ever purported to be a replacement for the Qurʾān and the Sunnah, nor can it ever be. The facility that a madhhab provides is that of a systematic approach to the sources of our law, accompanied by the benefit of generation after generation of the best, purest and most capable minds. And even then, there has been recognition of the fact that situations do arise when the follower of a madhhab finds it difficult to practice contrary to the apparent meaning of a ḥadīth that he has come across. Technically speaking, all that is required for a person faced by such a situation is that his practice be based upon the ijtihād of a valid mujtahid.
But beyond the technical aspect there is another angle: that of conduct and etiquette. When the situation warrants departure from one’s own madhhab and all the requirements are met, this does not mean that one now has a licence to indulge in disparagement of the imām from whose madhhab one has departed in that one particular issue. Never must sight be lost of the fact that one’s own minuscule smidgen of pseudo-insight is still eons away from the knowledge possessed by those paragons of scholarship and virtue. No one who is acutely aware of his own deficiencies would ever descend into using disrespectful language against the mujtahid imāms of the Ummah.
The true Shāfiʿī or Ḥanafī, therefore, is not only he who is prepared abandon the opinions of Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Shāfiʿī when he perceives them to be in apparent contradiction to the ḥadīth. At a deeper level it is he who is able to differ with the position of another without sliding into egotism and disparagement.