\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It has been a prevalent understanding in the intellectual tradition of Islam that man in his very constitution reflects what is there in the outer world.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In other words, man is the microcosmic representation of the macrocosm, the universe at large.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some scholars of that tradition went even further to assert that what is outside man reflects what is in him.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By and large, it is held that there are three basic powers, or faculties, common to both man and plants: the nutritive faculty, the faculty of growth, and the reproductive faculty.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As far as these faculties are concerned, man is no different from plants.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Just as plants need nutrition to grow and multiply, man needs to consume food and drink because only by doing so can he maintain his health and thus grow, and later on to duly satisfy his carnal instincts and reproduce.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0“Vegetative soul” (al-nafs al-nabatiyyah<\/em>) is the term the scholars of that tradition adopted to refer to such faculties.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet, they are not the only faculties man has; neither are they those which differentiate man from plants and beasts.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In this respect, to limit one’s life simply to the satisfaction of the three faculties is to reduce and downgrade oneself simply to mere plant!<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hence, there is a need to afford the other faculties of man their proper due, which brings us to the traditional understanding of the indispensability of maintaining order and justice in both the microcosm and the macrocosm.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The basic meaning of justice in Islam has always been “the condition wherein things are in their right places” and, as such, an act is said to be just if it is aimed at according a thing its proper place.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To maintain order and justice in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm requires and necessitates the realization of the above meaning both microcosmically and macrocosmically.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is in this context that one should reflect the wisdom of Shaykh Muhammad Arshad al-Banjari, a famous Malay Muslim scholar of the 19th century, comprising his\u00a0Sabil al-Muhtadin li al-Tafaqquh fi Amr al-Din<\/em>, a book on Islamic law (al-fiqh<\/em>).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Man, he argues, is created by God fully equipped with four main faculties: the rational faculty\u00a0(quwwah nutqiyyah)<\/em>, the nutritive appetitive faculty\u00a0(quwwah shahwiyyah batniyyah)<\/em>, the carnal appetitive faculty\u00a0(quwwah shahwiyyah farjiyyah)<\/em>, and the irascible faculty\u00a0(quwwah ghadabiyyah)<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From these psychic powers spring various human dispositions and actions that have societal impacts which, when classified, will generally fall into either one of the four general areas of human life: namely, religious rituals and worship\u00a0(\u2018ibadat)<\/em>, transactions\u00a0(mu\u2018amalat)<\/em>, matrimonial matters\u00a0(munakahat)<\/em>, and criminal or penal matters\u00a0(jinayat)<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As such, human affairs cannot be set in order unless all the four faculties are properly governed and perfected.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Since the main purpose of legal rulings\u00a0(hukum shara\u2018)<\/em>\u00a0in Islamic jurisprudence is to give order to human life, principally pertaining to the governance of those four general areas, al-Banjari explains that God out of his mercy has rendered the\u00a0\u2018ibadat\u00a0<\/em>to be the one that protects and perfects the rational faculty; the\u00a0mu\u2018amalat<\/em>, the nutrititive faculty; the\u00a0munakahat<\/em>, the carnal faculty; and the\u00a0jinayat<\/em>,the irascible faculty, respectively.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In accordance with such an arrangement and wisdom, and in order to realize that paramount religio-ethical task, it has become a common practice among the Shafi\u2018ite jurists to organize their\u00a0fiqh<\/em>\u00a0treatises and manuals into four main parts, namely,\u00a0Kitab al-\u2018Ibadat\u00a0<\/em>(The Book on Religious Rituals and Worship),\u00a0Kitab al-Mu\u2018amalat<\/em>\u00a0(The Book on Transactions),\u00a0Kitab al-Munakahat<\/em>\u00a0(The Book on Matrimonial Matters) and\u00a0Kitab al-Jinayat<\/em>\u00a0(The Book on Criminal or Penal Matters).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Indeed, it is such a psychological analysis of law that our colleagues in the legal fraternity should seriously consider in their efforts to revitalize Islamic jurisprudence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It has been a prevalent understanding in the intellectual tradition of Islam that man in his very constitution reflects what is there in the outer world. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In other words, man is the microcosmic representation of the macrocosm, the universe at large. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some scholars of that tradition went even further to assert that what is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-star","category-220","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}