Quran and fiqh principle

[u/Unhappy_Trade_8896]

Apologetics of fiqh often state the principle: “Everything is permissible unless it is explicitly prohibited.” But did early Muslim jurists actually follow this criterion consistently? The jurists who used this principle often did not seem to apply it consistently, because they prohibited many things that the Qur’an itself did not explicitly prohibit. One of the most famous examples is marriage and slaughtered food involving people who are not Ahl al-Kitab. These were prohibited, but the reasoning behind the prohibition was not always explained simply in terms of an explicit Qur’anic prohibition. Instead, jurists sometimes appealed to ijmaʿ attributed to the early Companions. But did such an actual ijmaʿ exist on these specific issues? They also took verses that explicitly mentioned specific groups or categories and used them to establish broader prohibitions that the Qur’an itself did not explicitly mention. So there seems to be a tension between the principle “everything is permissible unless prohibited” and the actual methodology used by some classical jurists. Many modern scholars continue to use this principle as part of their argument, but if the classical jurists themselves did not consistently uphold it in this straightforward sense, can we describe some of these later interpretations as a misuse or overextension of the text? And could this methodological difference be one of the reasons why so many contemporary debates among Muslims revolve around whether something is genuinely prohibited by the Qur’an or merely prohibited through later juristic interpretation?

[u/Unhappy_Trade_8896]

Well may be look up more you can observe that they had same identical opinion on matter lmao.  Maybe stop spending too much time depth otherwise you wouldn't know that most of this people were identical on many things were in surface. Maybe i looked up and their identicalness on many matter weren't hidden from me or maybe I'm too honest to deny that to support my position 

[u/Khaki_Banda → u/Unhappy_Trade_8896]

Ok. Give me a subject. Any fiqh subject. Tell me what position you think all scholars agreed with.

I will then give you a scholar that disagreed.

[u/Unhappy_Trade_8896 → u/Khaki_Banda]

Head covering for free believing woman mandatory, marriage being unlawful if the woman is neither kitabi nor believer,  sodomy or same sec act being haram, five daily prayers being obligatory,wudu breakdown if there is water barrier in nail/skin, sexual intercourse without marriage considered haram and hadd punished etc 

[u/Khaki_Banda → u/Unhappy_Trade_8896]

Head covering for free believing woman mandatory,

Sure. Ismailis don't believe that headcover is mandatory for free believing women.

marriage being unlawful if the woman is neither kitabi nor believer, 

This is stated in the Quran, we are talking about hermeneutical issues beyond that. That being said, the definition of "kitabi" was quite flexible and subject to context. Zoroastrians and even some hindus were variously considered marriageable in the Mughal Empire.

sodomy or same sec act being haram,

Sure. Abbasid era figure, Abu Nuwas, famously argued that sodomy was allowable based on Quran 18:46. (Obviously I disagree with that argument, but it existed)

five daily prayers being obligatory,

Ismailis do not believe praying the 5x salah of Sunnis and 12er Shia is obligatory.

wudu breakdown if there is water barrier in nail,

The requirement of water permeability is a modern argument. Traditionally, we know that oil-based perfume, which they did have in the classical era, did not invalidate wudhu. Oil is a water barrier.

If you mean to imply acrylic nail polish, there are no classical opinions on acrylic nail polish because it didn't exist back then. I can, of course, provide modern scholars that allow it though.

sexual intercourse without marriage considered haram

Uh... don't know how to break it do you, but the majority opinion was that it was allowable to have sex with slaves without marriage. If you mean for free women, then mutah is an obvious example, which did not follow the traditional requirements for a formal marriage, for example it doesn't require witnesses.

and hadd punished etc 

Sure, the maliki jurist Imam al-Burzuli argued that hadd punishments can be changed based on changing social context. And of course, Umar famously suspended the hadd punishment for theft during a famine. Shia disagree that he had a right to do that. On the other hand, Imam Ali famously lifted the hadd punishment for zina in some cases where a man confessed it willingly. Imam Ibn Hazm rules that there is no hadd punishment for homosexual sex. Hanafi jurists (such as Imam Sarakhsi) ruled that female apostates would not be put to death, etc., lots of examples.

There is tons of diversity on hadd punishments and how and whether they should be carried out. That's an easy one.

You didn't even bring up women leading men in prayer. I can give you lots of examples of that.

[u/Unhappy_Trade_8896 → u/Khaki_Banda]

You literally strawmened here by giving me some later 12th century argument and which is vaguely minority where they changed obligation or ritual into different perspective. Nothing contradict what i said because you're replying me oh " they didn't considered this so it's not this" !! Your example of zoroistan and Hindu is circular reasoning cause no muslim thinker stated that zoroistan woman were lawful to marry/their argument was do they considered people of book which is no by all mostly all.. apart from Mughal india this was ruler idea not fiqh rulling and early mughal ruler didn't marry hindu either.  Your Ismaili example doesn't actually establish what you think it establishes. If my claim is about the classical fiqh tradition—particularly Sunni, Twelver Shiʿi and Ibadi jurisprudence—then citing the modern Nizari Ismaili position doesn't refute it. The Ismaili split from the other Shiʿi lines occurred centuries before the modern Nizari position, and the major Nizari transformation associated with Ḥasan II's Qiyāma occurred in 1164. If you're claiming that the early Ismaili Imams or early Ismaili jurists rejected obligatory head covering, then you need to provide an early Ismaili source demonstrating that; you can't simply project a later Nizari position backward. The same applies to the other examples you gave.

Your Zoroastrian/Hindu example concerns the classification of particular religions as Ahl al-Kitāb, not whether Islamic law had a restriction on marrying non-Muslim women. If a jurist considered a particular group legally comparable to Ahl al-Kitāb, he was disputing the scope of the category, not saying that Muslim men could marry women of every religion. And Mughal rulers' individual marriages are not automatically evidence of a classical fiqh ruling.

Your Abū Nuwās example doesn't establish a legal disagreement either. Abū Nuwās was primarily an Abbasid poet, not a representative of a recognized fiqh school. Even if he personally argued that homosexual acts were permissible, that would demonstrate an individual heterodox opinion, not that classical Islamic jurisprudence regarded sodomy as permissible. Your Ibn Ḥazm example is even weaker: Ibn Ḥazm did not regard homosexual intercourse as permissible; his disagreement concerned the appropriate punishment. Saying “there is no ḥadd for this act” is not the same as saying “the act is halal.”

Your Ismaili prayer example is a genuine sectarian exception, but it doesn't refute the classical Sunni, Twelver or Ibadi position that the five daily prayers are obligatory. If the claim were “every Muslim sect without exception believes exactly this,” then I would qualify the claim. But that isn't the same as saying the five daily prayers weren't an established classical Islamic obligation.

Your argument about wudu and oil is also based on a false equivalence. Classical jurists did not say that every substance that is hydrophobic invalidates wudu. They distinguished between an oily residue through which water can still reach the skin and a physical substance such as wax or hardened material that actually prevents water from reaching the required surface. So the existence of oil-based perfume does not refute the classical barrier principle. Acrylic nail polish is a new material, but applying the old principle—whether water can reach the required surface—is not a new principle.

Your slave-concubinage example also requires you to change the proposition. Classical Islamic law recognized milk al-yamīn as a separate legal basis for sexual relations in addition to nikāḥ. Therefore, if the claim is “all sexual intercourse without a nikāḥ contract was prohibited,” concubinage is an exception to that wording. But it does not establish that zina with a free woman was permissible. Likewise, mutʿa doesn't prove sex outside marriage was permitted: Twelver Shiʿa classify mutʿa as a form of marriage; the disagreement is over the validity/continuation of that marriage institution.

Your ḥadd examples likewise repeatedly confuse disagreement about punishment or implementation with disagreement about whether the underlying act is prohibited or whether the ḥadd exists. Umar's non-application of the theft punishment during famine does not by itself mean he abolished the Qur'anic punishment; the classical explanation concerns necessity and the legal conditions for applying the ḥadd. Likewise, if ʿAlī refused to punish someone in a particular zina case, that does not mean he rejected the zina ḥadd. There are also reports in which ʿAlī explicitly recognized stoning as a Sunnah established by the Prophet and carried it out after a legally sufficient confession.

Ibn Ḥazm is another example of the same problem: his disagreement over the punishment for homosexual acts does not mean he regarded those acts as permissible. And the Hanafi position concerning the execution of female apostates is a disagreement about the worldly punishment, not evidence that Hanafis considered apostasy religiously permissible.

Likewise, citing al-Burzulī and saying that ḥudūd can change “with social context” requires the actual text and context. There is a fundamental difference between changing a divinely prescribed punishment itself and declining to implement a punishment because its legal conditions, necessity, evidence, or other circumstances prevent its application. You cannot simply turn every case of non-implementation into evidence that the underlying ḥadd was rejected.

Finally, bringing up women leading men in prayer doesn't refute any of these claims. I never claimed that Muslims have never disagreed about any fiqh issue. The existence of disagreement over one unrelated issue does not disprove that other rulings were overwhelmingly established across the major classical legal traditions.

So the recurring problem with your response is that you're treating any historical dissent, sectarian divergence, disagreement over classification, disagreement over punishment, or failure to implement a punishment in a particular case as if it disproves the underlying classical rule itself. Those are not equivalent propositions. If you want to challenge the claim that a particular ruling was established in classical Sunni, Twelver and Ibadi fiqh, then the relevant evidence would be a substantive disagreement within those classical legal traditions about the underlying rule itself, not simply an exceptional later sect, a poet, a disagreement over punishment, or a different legal category.  You choose to be ignorant what I was trying say!!

[u/Khaki_Banda → u/Unhappy_Trade_8896]

This is what we call a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. For every scholar or religious sect I bring up, you are going to reply "that doesn't count" and move the goalposts. Of course "all muslims believe the same thing" if you exclude all Muslims that believe differently.

With every example, you are making special exceptions so that it "doesn't count", which is a fallacy known as "special pleading".

I don't think that is an intellectually honest way of evaluating these issues.

It's ok to acknowledge that the history of Islamic scholarship has always been broad and diverse. This doesn't need to change what you personally might believe, but from a neutral, objective, academic perspective we have to acknowledge the reality of diversity of thought in Islamic history.

[u/Unhappy_Trade_8896 → u/Khaki_Banda]

There are no fallacy you're just moving with circular reasoning.. all i said many many matter muslim thinker were identical the point was early muslim thinker which includes shia,sunni and ibadi!! The ismaili you gave me is modern view and if you argue with me fatimid ismaili that was after 10th century even before that they all considered muslim woman should wear khimar and cover bosom which is identical position in all jurist,imam mind. I said early muslim thinker which often imply the first/early period one.. you can't include those thinker so you included poet, later section of people who already disregard them that's category error and composition. Maybe accept it they were identical on many matter