The Sixth Premise
For example, not all the matters mentioned in a Qur’anic commentary have to be commentary on the Qur’an; knowledge corroborates knowledge. But such matters should not preponderate.
It is an established fact that a person skilful in engineering may be unversed in another profession such as medicine. And it is a rule of the science of the principles of religion that the opinions of a person who is not an authority in jurisprudence (fiqh) are not held to be valid by the consensus of the scholars of that science, even if he is a mujtahid in the principles (usûl) of fiqh. Because compared to them his knowledge is deficient.
Furthermore, it is an historical fact that one person cannot be expert and proficient in numerous sciences (fen). Only an exceptional person can be a specialist in four or five sciences. To attempt all means abandoning all. Proficiency in a science is that science’s true form. It has to assume its true form through it. For if a person is not an expert in one science and does not use the rest of his knowledge to complete and supplement it, all the miscellaneous things he knows will form an anomalous conglomeration.
A Humorous Yarn to Explain This:
Suppose there is a portraitist who arrives on the earth from another world. He has seen the entire figure of neither man nor beast, so if he wants to draw the picture of a man or a figure out of all the things he has observed; for instance, a man out of one hand, one foot, one eye, half a face, a nose, and a turban; or an animal made up of various things that strike his eye like a horse’s tail, a camel’s hump, a man’s face, and a lion’s head: the people will tell him that because of the incompatibility of those things they cannot support life, and such weird creatures do not meet the conditions of life. They will pour scorn on the portraitist.
This rule is exactly applicable to the modern sciences. The solution is to take one science as one’s main science and to make all the rest of one’s knowledge a reservoir and pool for it.
Also, it is a constant law that if a single book contains numerous sciences (ulûm), the sciences will push and jostle each other. For since they will lead to one another and take each other by the hand, they will embrace and answer each other, and will therefore be so interwoven that in comparison with the book as a whole, the matters of any one science (fen) will be negligible.
It is because this question has been disregarded that when a literalist or a Sophist sees a matter included parethetically in a work about the Shari‘a or a Qur’anic commentary (tefsir), he declares: “That is the Shari‘a or the commentary!” [and holds such matters to be fundamental to the work]. If he is friendly, he says: “The person who doesn’t accept this can’t be Muslim.” Or if hostile, he makes it a pretext, [and condemns the work,] saying: “The Shari‘a or the commentary is wrong.”
O you who goes to one extreme or the other! Qur’anic commentaries and the Shari‘a are one thing, and books written about them are something else. For books are more extensive. Worthless things may be found in such shops besides the jewels. If you’ve grasped this, you’ll be saved from doubts.
Just as the necessities of a household can’t all be obtained from a single craftsman, but each has to be sought from an expert in the craft needed; so too, in the palace of civilisational achievements the law in question has to be complied with. Isn’t it clear that if someone asks the tailor to sew up his broken watch, he will receive nothing but a blast of invective?
Indication The gist of this Premise is as follows: although it is obligatory to act in accordance with the law of progress, which has been made operative in the world’s creation by the Glorious Maker and issues from the rule of the division of labour, and to comply with what it infers, this has not been fully observed. It is like this:
by virtue of the potentialities and inclinations planted in human nature by the gracious hand of divine wisdom – which necessitates the division of labour – a sort of command has been given to practise the arts and sciences. This is an obligation on a section of the community (farzü’l‑kifâye) imposed by the Shari‘a of Creation. But we abused this and due to our desire for superiority, which is a false ambition and pure hypocrisy, we extinguished the enthusiasm that would strengthen and assist the inclinations born of those potentialities, and wasted it.
Certainly the rebellious deserve Hell. And we were tormented by the hell of ignorance because we did not comply with the code of natural laws (şeriat‑ı fıtriye) known as creation. But if we act in conformity with the law of the division of labour, we will be saved from this torment. For our forebears acted in accordance with it and entered the paradise of the sciences.
Conclusion
Just as a non‑Muslim does not become a Muslim by merely entering a mosque; so some matter of a natural science like geography or history does not become Shari‘a or Qur’anic commentary by being included in a book of the Shari‘a or a commentary. Also, – on condition he is an expert – a ruling made by a scholar of the Shari‘a or Qur’anic interpretation, is authoritative only in the science concerned. His statements about intrusive matters that have entered works of the Shari‘a and exegesis (tefsir) without permission are not authoritative. For they are probably just spongers. But those who have related them should not be blamed.
Yes, if a person whose words on one science are authoritative holds his rulings on another science to be authoritative by moving them from one to the other or just as an assertion, it means he is not complying with the divine laws of the division of labour and organisation of work.
Also, it is accepted in logic that the proposition necessitates the statements of the subject and predicate in only one respect. Others of their statements are not part of that science. They have to be matters of some other science.
It is also established that a general statement cannot express a particular one with any of the three significations. For example, it is completely illogical to consider definitive the interpretation of the verse, between the two steep mountain‑sides in the tefsir of Bayḍāwī, that refers to what lies between the mountains of Armenia and Azerbaijan. For basically it is a narration (nakil). Also, what it states specifically is not what the Qur’an indicates; such an interpretation cannot be considered exegesis (tefsir), for it is a specific statement (teşrih) based on another science about part of the verse. It is unfair, therefore, to make such weak points a pretext and raise doubts about the well‑grounded competence in Qur’anic exegesis of that masterly commentator. The essential truths of Qur’anic commentaries and the Shari‘a are clear. They shine like the stars. Their power and clarity give courage to someone powerless like myself.
So I claim that however many fundamental truths there are in the Shari‘a and in Qur’anic commentaries, if they are studied closely, it will be seen that each one of them emerges from reality, is weighed up with wisdom, and as truth returns to truth. Dubious points, whatever they are, have appeared from prattling minds which have then muddled them. This is a challenge to whoever doubts the essential truth of Qur’anic commentaries and the Shari‘a! Let him step forward and show himself!