The word · Law & life
اِخْتِلاف
Ikhtilaf
Scholarly disagreement, which classical Islam treated as normal rather than as a crisis.
Also written · Ikhtilaaf · Ihtilaf · Ikhtelaf · Khilaf · Khilafiyyah · Ikhtilaf al-fuqaha · difference of opinion · disagreement · scholarly difference · divergence
The meaning
What Ikhtilaf means in Islam
It arises from the wording of texts, the strength of reports, differing methods, and different local customs. Scholars distinguished tolerated disagreement, where each side holds real evidence, from disagreement over what is definitively known, which is not tolerated. The Companions themselves differed and still prayed behind one another, and the standard etiquette is to act on the view you follow without condemning someone who follows another qualified one.
Evidence · Editorial · Our own summary, drawn from the sources named
Read beside it
Words that sit beside it
- MadhhabA school of law: a settled method of deriving rulings, carried by generations of scholars.مَذْهَب
- Ijma'The agreement of the qualified scholars of one generation on a single ruling.إِجْماع
- IjtihadThe disciplined effort of a qualified scholar to derive a ruling from the sources.اِجْتِهاد
- FiqhThe human effort to work out Islamic law from its sources, and the rulings that result.الفِقْه
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