Texts of Islam

Islam: Chapter Three: The Law: Fiqh, Sharī‘a: 5. The Rejecting of the Reprehensible (Al-nāhī ‘an al-munkar)

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This is an excerpt from a classical Islamic legal text (fiqh) in the Ḥanafī tradition, drawn from the writings of al-Marghinānī, a medieval jurist. The primary focus is on distinguishing between what is absolutely prohibited (ḥarām) and what is merely disapproved (makrūh), with extensive attention to the rules governing alcohol: specifically, what counts as khamr (grape-wine, strictly forbidden in any quantity), versus intoxicants made from honey, grain, or dates, which al-Marghinānī's school regards as conditionally permissible if not consumed wantonly. A notably liberal position runs throughout: the Ḥanafī school repeatedly diverges from the stricter Shāfiʿī and Mālikī schools, arguing, for instance, that non-Muslims may enter mosques and that selling grape juice to someone intending to make wine is permissible because the harm is not yet present in the substance itself. The section on disapproved matters covers a miscellany of rulings — chess, visiting sick non-Muslims, employing eunuchs, certain prayer formulas — each debated across legal schools with competing hadiths and Quranic verses cited as evidence. The text is useful for anyone interested in how classical Islamic jurisprudence reasoned about harm, impurity, and religious tolerance, and in how the Ḥanafī school's comparatively pragmatic interpretations set it apart from rival legal traditions.

Islam: Chapter Three: The Law: Fiqh, Sharī‘a: 5. The Rejecting of the Reprehensible (Al-nāhī ‘an al-munkar)

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