JADAL AND THE INTEGRATION OF KALĀ M AND FIQH A CRITICAL STUDY OF IMĀ M AL Ḥ ARAMAYN AL JUWAYNĪ’ S APPLICATION OF ISLAMIC DIALECTIC
Author: Mohammad Syifa Amin Widigdo
This article examines Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī’s application of
jadal theory in both his legal and theological work by analyzing
critically his major writings, namely: Kitāb al-Irshād (1950),
al-Kāfīya fī al-jadal (1979), al-Burhān fī uṣūl al-fiqh (1980),
al-Durrah al-Muḍīyah fī mā waqaʿa fīhi al-khilāf bayn al-Shāfiʿīyah wa
al-Ḥanafīyah (1986), and Tafḍīl madhhab al-Shāfiʿī ʿalā sā’ir
al-madhāhib (2013). Through a hermeneutical reading of these books, I
find that Imām al-Ḥaramayn’s application of jadal renders the
integration of kalām and fiqh. At first, Imām al-Ḥaramayn aims to obtain
knowledge with a certain level of certainty (in the forms of ʿilm or
ghalabat al-ẓann) in law and theology by applying jadal in both
disciplines. Then, this scholarly attempt of obtaining certainty
interestingly provides an epistemological ground for the integration of
kalām and fiqh. He inserts theological elements in his legal scholarship
and incorporates a juridical perspective in his theological work. As a
result, he “rationalizes” Shāfiʿī legal doctrines on the one hand and
“traditionalizes” rational theology on the other. This epistemological
foundation for the integration of kalām and fiqh is important not only
because it provides a different description of Islamic intellectual
history, but also redefines the concept of Sunnī in the eleventh
century.