Being more rationalist than their contemporary traditionists...

Being more rationalist than their contemporary traditionists, it was the Mu'tazilites who were perhaps the first to be struck by the curious and repeated stress which the Qur'an has laid on the rational side of life. To persuade men to abide by the precepts of Islam, the Qur'an again and again appeals to reason (tadabbarun, tatajakkarun, ta'qilun, etc.), and repeatedly refers to ma'ruf and munkar[^2] as the bases of Muslim Law.

Now, ma'ruf means a good which is recognized as such on all hands, and a munkar is an evil disapproved as such by everybody. It cannot, therefore, be true that the rules of conduct laid down by the Qur'an and the Sunnah are arbitrary and merely for the purpose of testing the will to submit on the part of the Faithful. Evidently, not every man in the street will be able to understand the underlying principles of each and every Qur'anic order or injunction.

That is the domain of the specialists of the philosophy of Law. An anecdote will explain the point. Abu Hanifah, one of the early jurists, had a penetrating mind, and was also endowed with a sense of humor. Not always being able to understand the reasons that led this great jurist to hold certain opinions, stupid people began to accuse him of heresy; according to them, he legislated by his personal opinion in disregard of the sayings or practice of the Holy Prophet.

Once somebody had the audacity to tell this to his face. Abu Hanifah replied: “I never promulgate rules on my personal opinion; on the other hand, I always deduce laws from the sacred texts of the Qur'an and the Hadith.

Had I relied on my personal reasoning, I would have ordered that in the act of ablutions, one should pass a wet hand not on the uppers of a shoe (khuff)-as is ordered by the Prophet-but on the sole, for that is the part which requires cleansing more than any other part of the footwear.” In this humorous way, abu Hanifah succeeded in silencing and even calming the apprehensions of his well-meaning critic.

The answer was humorous, because abu Hanifah did not refer to the reasons for not washing the soles of one's shoes for if the sole of the footwear is moistened and then one stands up for the service of worship, it is the more apt to get dirty if one prays on the ground, and to soil the carpet if one prays on one. In other words, a single issue may have several aspects, but it is the duty of the philo­sopher to give preference to the more important of such aspects.