The Effect of Agreeing With Ahl as-Sunnah (the people of the Sunnah) on Identifying “Jurisprudential Taqiyya (Arabic: تَقیَّة, taqīyah, literally prudence, fear) Traditions”

Abstract

Ahl al-Bayt (Arabic: أَهْل ٱلْبَيْت, lit. people of the house) were forced to observe the policy of taqiyya (Arabic: تَقیَّة, taqīyyah, literally prudence, fear) in order to preserve Islam and revive the pure Shīʿa thought with the deviation of the caliphate (Arabic: خِلافَة, Khilāfa) from the Family of Revelation in the history of Islam. This policy was used in giving secondary religious rulings and fatwās) Arabic: فَتْوى; plural fatāwā فَتاوى). There are many cases of ḥadīths (Arabic: حَديث, ḥadīṯ, pl. aḥādīth, أحاديث, ʾaḥādīṯ, literally “talk” or “discourse”) in jurisprudential books that were taken to taqiyya based on jurisprudential and principal rules, although Imāms generally gave fatwās based on primary rulings and without taqiyya. This type of taqiyyah, which is secondary to Sharīʿah (Arabic: شَريعة) rulings is considered as “jurisprudential taqiyyah”. Traditions indicating jurisprudential taqiyya are also called jurisprudential taqiyya traditions. The author by considering the large numbers of taqiyyah traditions and the existence of conflicts between these traditions is going to answer the question of what effect and place have agreeing with Ahl as-Sunnah (the people of the Sunnah)’s religion in identifying the traditions of jurisprudential taqiyya traditions, so that by knowing them, the jurist can deduce primary (true and real) religious law from the sources of narration while resolving the conflict between these traditions. As a result, it has been concluded by examining the narrative texts and observing many examples of taqiyya ḥadīths and by descriptive and analytical method that acceptance of jurisprudential taqiyya among the types of taqiyya is inevitable in such a way that this kind of taqiyya is evident in the contradiction of famous taqiyya ḥadīths and one of the important and influential features in identifying the jurisprudential taqiyya ḥadīths is agreement with the religion of Ahl as-Sunnah religion, although some jurists such as Ṣaḥib al- Ḥadā’iq (Al-Shaykh Yūsuf al-Baḥrānī, Arabic: الشَّیْخ یُوسُف البَحْراني) do not consider much importance to this indicator for this reason.

Keywords

• taqiyya
• jurisprudential taqiyya
• taqiyya ḥadīths
• disagreeing with ahl as-sunnah (the people of the sunnah)
• contradictory ḥadīths