A Comparative Analysis between the Implications of Paradigm and Ijma for the Cognition Element

Fatemeh Rezaei

Sayyed Mohammad Hadi Gabooli Dorafshan

Alireza Azad

Alireza Abedi Sarasia

 

Abstract: Paradigms are common presuppositions of the scientific community and ijma is the consensus among Islamic jurists. Despite apparent differences, paradigm and ijma have similarities as well. Using descriptive-analytical research method, this article compares the position of paradigm with ijma in Islamic law to analyse their weaknesses and strengths as a sources of Islamic law. Ijma, like paradigm, while having merits, constitutes a serious impediment in the field of inference. In this regard, the main argument of this article is that ijma creates the presupposition of faultlessness in the minds of participating experts and acts as a fence, constituting an obstacle to new approaches and creativity. The relationship between paradigm and ijma is reciprocal, i.e., paradigms generate ijma and ijma generate paradigms and even protect them with the difference that ijma last longer than the paradigms which have generated them. This is due to, in addition to the sanctity of Islamic jurisprudence and those who infer it, the difference between the genre of paradigm and ijma. In other words, paradigms are unwritten presuppositions whose change is imperceptible; unlike ijma which is the specified consensus of the Muslim jurists, and its change may be considered as disrespect for the sacred.