MUHAMMAD SA’ID AL-‘ASHMAWI (Mencabar Pemikirannya tentang Penerapan Syarî’ah di Mesir)

Abstract

The rise of a vigorous and sometimes violent Islamist
movement in Egypt has attracted considerable attention
from scholars. Less attention has been given to those who
have responded to this challenge at the level of ideological
debate. One of these is a prominent judge, Muhammad Sa’id
al-‘Ashmawi. He argues that the call for the "application of
the syarî’ah" (tathbîq al-sharî’ah), watchwords of the Islamist
movement, are in reality little more than empty slogans,
designed to get popular support for a political venture but
extremely vague and probably insignificant in substance. In
time, however, its meaning expanded, first to include all of
the rules for worship and society found in the Qur’ân, then
those in the sunna of the Prophet, and finally all the opinions
and judgments of the scholars (ijtihâd). But these opinions
and judgments are properly called fiqh, and the final result of
the development is that in common usage the term syarî’ah
has come to mean fiqh.Those who use the slogan, however,
are in fact calling for the application oí fiqh, that is, a set of
rules and laws devised by humans, not God, to meet
historical conditions of the past which no longer obtain. In
discussing ribä, al-cAshmawi holds that current Egyptian
law essentially conforms to the syarî’ah. The same is true of
the rest of Egyptian law.