The Concept of Opposition Between Majority of Scholars and Hanafi Scholars

Abstract

The concept of opposition is one of the ways in which words convey their meanings in Islamic texts. It plays an important role in interpreting and understanding Islamic texts and deriving Islamic rulings from them. Understanding this type of meaning requires knowing its true nature, the conditions for applying it, determining its validity, and clarifying the scholars' opinions on it. This is the objective of my study. I followed an analytical inductive approach. My conclusion from the study is that scholars of Usul al-Fiqh agreed on the validity of some types of the concept of opposition, while differing on the validity of other types. The concept of opposition is not applied in an absolute sense, but is bound by conditions and controls that must be observed for it to be considered legally valid. These conditions include its connection to the linguistic context and the requirements of prevailing customs. The disagreement over the validity of the concept of opposition was between the majority of scholars and Hanafi scholars, which had implications for some Islamic jurisprudential rulings.