The Qur'an and the Sunnah: The Time-Space Factor

Taha Jabir Al-Alwani · Imad al Din Khalil

Jan 1995 · Occasional papers Ibhuku elingu-3 · International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

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For too long now, the Qur’an and the Sunnah, great sources of strength, purity, knowledge and inspiration for the Ummah, have not been adequately tapped. Skirting their peripheries or over-dwelling on one or two of their multifarious facets and tributaries has done a disservice to the immense potential of the fountainhead, while denying the Ummah- indeed the whole world- innumerable benefits from them.

Now that the Ummah is becoming increasingly aware of its own problems as well as latent powers, and yearns to revive its leading role in the forging of history and cilization, the issue of drawing on the wellspring becomes more relevant and urgent. Revisiting these two sources is no longer a scholastic, academic, nostalgic, or escapist indulgence, but a great journey of discovery that promises untold rewards.

Paradoxically, the journey through the resplendent pages of the Qur’an and the Sunnah to a time and place in the past should yield a more mature awareness of the dynamics of social and historical change and a human being’s role on earth, honing and sharpening the Muslims’ capacity to deal with the demands of the present moment and the challenges of the future.

Suggestions for a new reading of the Qur’an and the Sunnah have been put forward from Islamic and other angles in the recent years.  In this book Dr. Al-Alwani and Dr. Khalil, two well-known Muslim thinkers, contribute their views for a proper approach to these sources from within the Islamic framework.

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 Dr. Taha Jabir Al-Alwani is a graduate of Al-Azhar University and an internationally known scholar and expert in the fields of Islamic legal theory, jurisprudence (fiqh), and usul al-fiqh. He is President of The Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS), USA; President of The Fiqh Council of North America; Member of the OIC Islamic Fiqh Academy; and former President of The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), USA. He is also the author of numerous works including: “Source Methodology in Islamic Jurisprudence”, “Towards a Fiqh for Minorities”; “The Ethics of Disagreement in Islam”; “Ijtihad”; and “The Qur’an and the Sunnah: The Time-Space Factor”. (2005).

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad is a Ph.D. astronomer who has been actively involved in the issue of moonsightings and the Islamic calendar since the 1980’s. Born in 1948 of Palestinian parents, Dr. Ahmad was raised in Pennsylvania. He graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1970 and in 1975 obtained a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Arizona. Dr. Ahmad has done postdoctoral work in astronomy at Harvard, the University of Maryland, and under contract to Goddard Space Flight Center and for private firms. He is currently president of his own research firm, Imad-ad-Dean, Inc. (1998).