الإمام اللخمي بين تهمة تمزيق المذهب و الانتصار للدليل

Abstract EN

Imam “al- Lakhmi”- may Allah rest his soul in peace - faced bitter criticism, until he became known as someone who brought divergence to the creed because he had choices that were different of Imam Malik’s, despite that the majority of scholars approved these choices by sustaining them with evidence.

Al- Lakhmi-may Allah rest his soul in peace- was not against narrated sayings in the doctrine for mere personal doctrinal inclinations, but he was just following the path of the head of the Malikite School and other scholars like him.

He was not the first and only imam who raised objections against the doctrine, there were many imams after and before him, but they were not criticized as he was.

On the contrary, they found encouragement and their works were considered as enriching contributions to the Maliki Fiqh.

Apparently, this charge has been spread out because of some circumstances in specific periods of time in the existence of the Maliki school.

The first scholars who were fulfilled with the reasoning effort (Ijtihad) considered that almujtahid (diligent) reaches a new opinion or a new saying in a given issue thanks to evidence.

Thus, priority was given to evidence over the narrator’s position or the notoriety of the saying.

However, when the door was closed in front of the reasoning effort (ijtihad) and mere imitation was spread as a principle of judgment, things changed, and full credit was given to Ibn AlQasim’s sayings, ignoring the power of the evidence, and not considering the opposing view however right and powerful it might be.