A Muslim Scholar Offers Guidance to His Fellow Believers

The Islamic religion spread via merchants in the seventh century C.E., and the later advance of Muslim armies into Pakistan and India between the eighth and twelfth centuries led to centuries of Islamic control over northern India. Many converted, but many others retained their traditional religion. The Muslims of India followed a school of Islamic law called Hanafī, which was codified by the author Maulana Burhān ud-dīn Marghīnānī, who was born in what is now Uzbekistan. His Guidance (al-Hidāyah) remains one of the most important reference guides to Islamic law.

Alms-giving is an ordinance of God, incumbent upon every person who is free, sane, adult, and a Muslim, provided he be possessed, in full property, of such estate or effects as are termed in the language of the law a minimum, and that he has been in possession of the same for the space of one complete year. . . . The reason of this obligation is found in the word of God, who has ordained it in the Qur’ān, saying, “Bestow alms.” The same injunction occurs in the traditions, and it is moreover universally admitted. The reason for freedom being a requisite condition is that this is essential to the complete possession of property. The reason why sanity of intellect and maturity of age are requisite conditions shall be hereafter demonstrated. The reason why the Muslim faith is made a condition is that the rendering of alms is an act of piety, and such cannot proceed from an infidel.

The objects of the disbursement of alms are of eight different descriptions: first, the needy; secondly, the destitute; thirdly, the collector of alms; . . . fourthly, slaves [upon whom alms are bestowed in order to enable them, by fulfilling their contract (i.e., by procuring their purchase price) to procure their freedom]; fifthly, debtors not possessed of property amounting to a legal minimum; sixthly, in the service of God; seventhly, travelers; and eighthly, the winning over of hearts. And those eight descriptions are the original objects of the expenditure of alms, being particularly specified as such in the Qur’ān; and there are, therefore, no other proper or legal objects of its application. With respect to the last, however, the law has ceased to operate, since the time of the Prophet, because he used to bestow alms upon them as a bribe or gratuity to prevent them from molesting the Muslims, and also to secure their occasional assistance; but when God gave strength to the faith, and to its followers, and rendered the Muslims independent of such assistance, the occasion of bestowing this gratuity upon them no longer remained; and all the doctors10 unite in this opinion. . . .

It is lawful for a freeman to marry four wives, whether free or slaves; but it is not lawful for him to marry more than four, because God has commanded in the Qur’ān, saying: “Ye may marry whosoever women are agreeable to you, two, three, or four,” and the numbers being thus expressly mentioned, any beyond what is there specified would be unlawful. Shāfi’ī11 alleges a man cannot lawfully marry more than one woman of the description of slaves, from his tenet as above recited, that “the marriage of freemen with slaves is allowable only from necessity”; the text already quoted is, however, in proof against him, since the term “women” applies equally to free women and to slaves.

In all rights, whether of property or otherwise, the probity of the witness, and the use of the word shahādat [evidence] is requisite; even in the case of the evidence of women with respect to birth, and the like; and this is approved; because shahādat is testimony, since it possesses the property of being binding; whence it is that it is restricted to the place of jurisdiction; and also, that the witness is required to be free; and a Muslim. If, therefore, a witness should say: “I know,” or “I know with certainty,” without making use of the word shahādat, in that case his evidence cannot be admitted. With respect to the probity of the witness, it is indispensable, because of what is said in the Qur’ān: “Take the evidence of two just men.”

The testimony of zimmīs [protected unbelievers] with respect to each other is admissible, notwithstanding they be of different religions. Mālik12 and Shāfi’ī have said that their evidence is absolutely inadmissible, because, as infidels are unjust, it is requisite to be slow in believing anything they may advance, God having said [in the Qur’ān]: “When an unjust person tells you anything, be slow in believing him”; whence it is that the evidence of an infidel is not admitted concerning a Muslim; and consequently, that an infidel stands [in this particular] in the same predicament with an apostate. The arguments of our doctors upon this point are twofold. First, it is related of the Prophet, that he permitted and held lawful the testimony of some Christians concerning others of their sect. Secondly, an infidel having power over himself, and his minor children, is on that account qualified to be a witness with regard to his own sect; and the depravity which proceeds from his faith is not destructive of this qualification, because he is supposed to abstain from everything prohibited in his own religion, and falsehood is prohibited in every religion. It is otherwise with respect to an apostate, as he possesses no power, either over his own person, or over that of another; and it is also otherwise with respect to a zimmī in relation to a Muslim, because a zimmī has no power over the person of a Muslim. Besides, a zimmī may be suspected of inventing falsehoods against a Muslim from the hatred he bears to him on account of the superiority of the Muslims over him.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS