Abstract
Muhammad Arsyad Al-Banjari who lived from 1710 to 1812 in Borneo, Indonesia, applied a model of integrating uses of the Banjarese tradition into Islamic Jurisprudence based on a dialectical constitution of qiyās, the legal argumentation theory for parallel reasoning and analogy, he learned from the Shāfi‘ī-school of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh). Our paper focuses in the model of integration proposed and practiced by Al-Banjari, a rational debate grounded on a dynamic view on legal systems. We will illustrate the method with the help of two different kinds of qiyās deployed by Al-Banjari in order to argue for the rejection of some traditional Banjarese offering-rituals for avoiding disease or calamities (manyanggar and mambuang pasilih), and for the acceptance of the use of consuming the traditional drink called lahang made of the juice of sugar-palm. As our dialogical reconstruction shows, the development of the debates, particularly the first one, is quite sophisticated, with a Banjarese opponent that does not surrender easily to the rejection of his use of those rituals.
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Notes
In relation to Islamization of Indonesia, see Kersten (2017).
The Banjarese is the native ethnic group in South Kalimantan. They represent one of the largest tribe in Indonesia. Nowadays they are more than 4 million, mostly living in South Kalimantan. The Banjarese have the reputation of being pious Muslims. Islam became constitutive of their identity – see Hawkins (2000) and Chalmers (2007).
That is, the principle that “the original state of things is permissibility except for what the Law proscribes” (al-aṣl fi’l-ashyā’ al-ibāḥa illā mā ḥaẓarahu al-Sharʿ). See Ibn Ḥazm (1928–1933, vol. 1, p. 177). See Rahman/Zidani/Young (2019b, section V).
Whereas al-Ghazālī defended vehemently the use of qiyās, he did not share the opinion that the occasioning factor can be identified by pure epistemological means. Epistemological methods must be coupled with insights coming from additional hermeneutical procedures. Cf. al-Ghazālī (1324H, pp. 307–308) and Hallaq (1987b, pp. 61–62).This seems to be the interpretation of al-Ghazālī' followed by Al-Banjari. Perhaps, one way to put al-Ghazālī's point is as stressing the fact that the epistemological means provided by qiyās pave the way for understanding the intention of the norms given by the Lawgiver.
Cf. Young (2017, p. 10). The term has quite often a broader meaning encompassing legal reasoning in general. However, Young’s choice for its translation renders a narrower sense that stems from approach of the Shafi‘ī’s.
See Marmura (1965). Peter Adamson (2019, April 1), who has a slightly less occasionalist reading as the one of Marmura expresses the point as follows:
his [Al-Ghazālī] critique here imputes a very strong notion of causality to the philosophers: namely that given the existence of a cause, the existence of its effect is necessary. Al-Ghazālī holds that, on such a notion of causality, only God is a cause. This is because, given the existence of miracles, and accepting the proposition that God can do anything, no cause other than God can necessitate its effect. It is always possible that God might will the expected effect not to proceed, or will an entirely different effect to proceed. Al-Ghazālī defends this view against both philosophers who claim that a natural cause, such as the fire which causes the burning of cotton, is the sole and sufficient cause for its effect.
Rahman/Iqbal/Soufi (2019a, I.4.2.3) deployed the operator F as notation for an objection that commits to the questioner to a sub-dialogue where he contests A. More precisely, in uttering the expression X ! FA the questioner X claims that he can find a counterexample during a sub-dialogue where the antagonist Y asserts A.
See Rahman/Iqbal (2018, 2019, chapter 4) – though the examples in this chapter involve qiyās al-‘illa rather than qiyās al-shabah. Notice that the rulings leading to naqḍ are not always based on producing two contradictory rulings or sanctions, it is sufficient to bring forward two incompatible ones. For example, some forms of homicide neither lead to jail nor to being set free but to the obligation of carrying out certain specific social services.
As pointed out by Miller (1984, p. 130), al-Shīrāzī and al-Bājī consider it a special case of mu‘āraḍa (opposition/supplantation).
More precisely lahang is made from the juice of Arenga pinnata.
Substances that mingle or dissolve with the grape-juice, such as sugar, honey or wheat do not contaminate the resulting vinegar.
Clearly, we indulge here in the anachronism of deploying Brandom’s (1994) terminology in the context of a dialectical practice far in time and space from the one discussed by Brandom. Perhaps, this also suggests that the emergence of the dialectic stance on the rational assessment of notions and beliefs implicit in social practices has quite of a long and rich history behind.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Christian Plantin (Lyon), who encouraged us to submit the paper to the fascinating volume he edits, and to thank the Laboratory STL: UMR-CNRS 8163 and particularly to Leone Gazziero (STL), Laurent Cesalli (Genève), and Tony Street (Cambridge) leaders of the ERC-Generator project “Logic in Reverse. Fallacies in the Latin and the Islamic traditions. “ and to Claudio Majolino (STL), associated researcher to that project, for fostering the research leading to the present study. The first author thanks his home institution Universitas Islam Negeri Antasari Banjarmasin, Indonesia and the Funding of Kementerian Agama Republik Indonesia for a grant that made it possible to develop his research at the University of Lille and the Laboratory STL.
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Iqbal, M., Rahman, S. Arsyad Al-Banjari’s Dialectical Model for Integrating Indonesian Traditional Uses into Islamic Law. Argumentation 35, 73–99 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-020-09526-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-020-09526-y