2. Procedure of Ijma and Its Kinds — Islamic Studies

Definition

Ijma: the unanimous agreement of qualified Mujtahids of a given era on a Shariah ruling, after the Prophet's (PBUH) death.
Third source of Islamic law after the Qur'an and Sunnah.

Scriptural Basis

4:115 — warning against departing from "the way of the believers."
Hadith: "My Ummah will never agree upon error."

Types of Ijma

Ijma Sarih
- Explicit, openly stated unanimous agreement.
- Considered binding by all schools.
Ijma Sukuti
- Tacit consensus — scholars remain silent without objection.
- Its binding force is debated among the schools.

Procedure of Ijma

A legal question arises.
Qualified Mujtahids of the time independently research and derive an opinion from the Qur'an and Sunnah.
Opinions are compared and debated.
Agreement (explicit or tacit) is reached.
The ruling becomes binding precedent.

Classic example: the companions' Ijma on compiling the Qur'an into a single Mushaf under Abu Bakr (RA), and standardising it under Uthman (RA).

Qur'anic Evidence

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وَيَتَّبِعْ غَيْرَ سَبِيلِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ نُوَلِّهِ مَا تَوَلَّىٰ

اردو: اور مومنوں کے راستے کے سوا کسی اور راستے پر چلے، ہم اسے اسی طرف پھیر دیں گے جدھر وہ پھرا ہے۔

English: "And whoever opposes the Messenger... and follows a path other than that of the believers, We will give him what he has taken and drive him into Hell."

— Surah An-Nisa 4:115

Hadith Evidence

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لَا تَجْتَمِعُ أُمَّتِي عَلَى ضَلَالَةٍ

اردو: میری امت گمراہی پر کبھی جمع نہیں ہو گی۔

English: "My Ummah will never agree upon error/misguidance."

— Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2167; Sunan Ibn Majah 3950

CSS Exam Tips

Explain the procedure of Ijma as a source of Islamic law, along with its types.
Cross-reference: Procedure of Ijtihad, Sources of Islamic Law (Theme VI).

20-Mark Enrichment — Analytical Material

Core Argument

Ijmāʿ is the third source of Islamic law and its principal instrument of stability. Where ijtihād generates plurality, ijmāʿ converts an agreed conclusion into a binding, non-reopenable ruling. The 20-mark thesis: ijmāʿ performs in Islamic law the function that binding precedent performs in common law — it closes questions so that each generation need not relitigate settled ground — and its practical near-impossibility after the first generation is precisely why collective ijtihād through institutional academies has become its modern substitute.

1. Definition and Position Among the Sources

Definition: the agreement of all qualified mujtahids of the Muslim ummah, in a given era, after the death of the Prophet ﷺ, upon a sharʿī ruling.
Every element of that definition does work: all (not a majority), qualified mujtahids (not the general public or the rulers), of a given era, after the Prophet ﷺ (during his life the source was revelation, not consensus), and on a legal ruling (not on a historical or empirical fact).
Rank: third after the Qur'an and Sunnah, and above qiyās — because ijmāʿ is itself always based on an underlying textual evidence (sanad), even where that evidence is not recorded.
Effect: a valid ijmāʿ is qaṭʿī — definitive; contradicting it is impermissible, and reopening the question in a later era is not allowed.

2. Authority (Ḥujjiyyah) of Ijmāʿ

Qur'anic basis: وَمَنْ يُشَاقِقِ الرَّسُولَ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا تَبَيَّنَ لَهُ الْهُدَىٰ وَيَتَّبِعْ غَيْرَ سَبِيلِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ نُوَلِّهِ مَا تَوَلَّىٰ — "And whoever opposes the Messenger after guidance has become clear to him and follows a path other than that of the believers, We will give him what he has taken and drive him into Hell" — (4:115) — following a way other than that of the believers is censured; the "way of the believers" is read as their agreed position.
Also cited: 3:110 (the best community, enjoining good — presupposing a community that recognises good collectively) and 2:143 (the ummah as witnesses over mankind, which presupposes reliability).
Ḥadīth basis: لَا تَجْتَمِعُ أُمَّتِي عَلَىٰ ضَلَالَةٍ — "my ummah will not agree upon an error" (Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, and variants in Abū Dāwūd and Aḥmad); يَدُ اللَّهِ مَعَ الْجَمَاعَةِ — "the hand of Allah is with the community" (Tirmidhī).
Note on transmission: individually these reports are āḥād; jurists argue that their collective mass (tawātur maʿnawī — convergence of many chains on one meaning) establishes the principle even if no single chain is definitive. Making this point demonstrates real command of uṣūl.

3. The Procedure (Kayfiyyat al-Inʿiqād)

This is the part the question usually asks for; give it as sequenced steps:

A new question arises — one on which the Qur'an and Sunnah contain no explicit, definitive ruling.
The era's mujtahids are identified — those meeting the conditions of ijtihād (see §5).
Each exercises independent ijtihād on the question, from the primary sources through qiyās and the supplementary evidences.
Views are exchanged and deliberated — historically through assembly (as under the Rāshidūn), correspondence, or the circulation of opinions.
Agreement is reached by every qualified mujtahid of that era, expressed either explicitly (ṣarīḥ) or by the silence of the rest after some have ruled (sukūtī).
The consensus is established and recorded, becoming binding on that generation and those after it.

Conditions of validity: the participants must be qualified; the agreement must be complete, not merely majority; it must concern a sharʿī ruling; it must rest on a legitimate evidence; and — on the majority view — the era's mujtahids must all have died holding the position for it to become finally binding (the inqirāḍ al-ʿaṣr condition, itself disputed).

4. Kinds of Ijmāʿ

By manner of expression:

Ijmāʿ Ṣarīḥ (explicit): every mujtahid states his agreement — unanimously accepted as binding and definitive.
Ijmāʿ Sukūtī (tacit): some rule, the rest learn of it and remain silent without objection. Its authority is disputed — the Ḥanafīs and Ḥanbalīs generally accept it as ijmāʿ or as strong evidence; al-Shāfiʿī rejected it, on the ground that silence may indicate caution, ignorance of the matter, or fear rather than assent.

By era and place:

Ijmāʿ of the Companions (ijmāʿ al-ṣaḥābah) — the strongest and most verifiable; the only category on which there is near-universal agreement in principle.
Ijmāʿ of a later era — theoretically possible, practically unverifiable after the community's geographic spread.
Ijmāʿ of the people of Madīnah — accepted by Mālik as authoritative, because their practice preserved prophetic precedent; not accepted as ijmāʿ proper by other schools.
Ijmāʿ of the Ahl al-Bayt and ijmāʿ of the four caliphs — recognised by some, disputed by others.

By content:

Ijmāʿ on a ruling versus ijmāʿ on the underlying reasoning — the former alone is binding.

5. Who May Participate — Conditions of the Mujtahid

Knowledge of the Qur'an, particularly its legal verses, and of the Sunnah and its authentication.
Command of Arabic — grammar, morphology, rhetoric, and the modes of legal expression (ʿāmm/khāṣṣ, muṭlaq/muqayyad, mujmal/mubayyan).
Knowledge of uṣūl al-fiqh, of the positions of earlier jurists (so as not to violate an existing ijmāʿ), of abrogation, and of the occasions of revelation.
Knowledge of the maqāṣid and of the realities of the time and place.
Personal integrity (ʿadālah) and sound judgment.
Excluded: the general public, political authority as such, and scholars of one discipline speaking outside their competence. Ijmāʿ is not a plebiscite and not a decree — stating this rules out two common misconceptions.

6. Classical Examples of Ijmāʿ

Compilation of the Qur'an under Abū Bakr (RA) and its standardisation under ʿUthmān (RA).
The appointment of a caliph as a communal obligation.
The prohibition of marriage to a grandmother — not stated explicitly in the text, but agreed by extension from 4:23.
The share of the grandmother in inheritance (one-sixth), established by Sunnah and agreed practice.
Twenty rakʿahs of tarāwīḥ congregationally under ʿUmar (RA) — his celebrated remark, "what an excellent innovation this is."
The kharāj settlement of conquered lands under ʿUmar (RA), after debate and eventual agreement.
The obligation of Friday prayer, the number of daily prayers, and the rates of Zakāt as settled by agreed practice.
Modern candidates for consensus: the prohibition of targeting non-combatants; the impermissibility of takfīr of Muslims on the basis of major sin.

7. Difficulties, Criticisms and the Modern Position

Verification problem: after the Companions, the mujtahids were dispersed from Andalusia to Transoxiana; establishing that every one of them agreed is practically impossible. Ibn Ḥanbal's reported remark — "whoever claims ijmāʿ is a liar; perhaps people have differed" — is the classic expression of this scepticism.
The Ẓāhirī position: Ibn Ḥazm accepted only the ijmāʿ of the Companions as verifiable.
The identification problem: who decides who is a mujtahid? In the absence of an institutional certification, the category is contested.
Political misuse: rulers have historically claimed "consensus" to foreclose legitimate disagreement — the reason jurists insisted that ijmāʿ belongs to scholars, not to authority.
The modern substitute — ijtihād jamāʿī (collective ijtihād): institutional bodies exercising deliberative reasoning where classical ijmāʿ is unattainable:
- Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), Jeddah; the Islamic Fiqh Academy of the Muslim World League, Makkah.
- AAOIFI — standards for Islamic finance.
- Council of Islamic Ideology (Pakistan) and the Federal Shariat Court.
- National fatwā councils in Malaysia, Indonesia (MUI), Egypt (Dār al-Iftāʾ) and elsewhere.
- Their rulings are strong collective opinion rather than binding ijmāʿ, but they perform its function of stabilising answers to new questions — cryptocurrency, organ transplantation, IVF, insurance, vaccination, artificial intelligence.

8. Contemporary Relevance

Legislative process: in a modern Muslim state, an elected assembly advised by a fiqh academy approximates the classical relationship between ahl al-ḥall wa'l-ʿaqd and the mujtahids.
Standard-setting: AAOIFI's role in Islamic finance shows collective ijtihād generating enforceable technical standards across jurisdictions.
Countering extremism: collective scholarly declarations — the Amman Message (2005) on the validity of the recognised schools and the restriction of takfīr, and Paigham-e-Pakistan (2018) — are attempts to deploy consensus against sectarian and militant claims. Their limitation is that they bind morally, not legally.
Guarding against abuse: the requirement that ijmāʿ be scholarly and free rather than state-directed is the safeguard against religion being conscripted by power.

Qur'anic Evidence Bank

al-Nisāʾ 4:115 — following a way other than that of the believers.
al-Nisāʾ 4:59 — obey Allah, the Messenger, and those in authority; refer disputes back to the Book and Sunnah.
Āl-ʿImrān 3:103 — hold fast together and do not divide.
Āl-ʿImrān 3:110 — the best community, enjoining good.
al-Baqarah 2:143 — the ummah as witnesses over mankind.
al-Shūrā 42:38 — affairs decided by consultation (the deliberative basis of collective ijtihād).

Hadith / Seerah Application

لَا تَجْتَمِعُ أُمَّتِي عَلَىٰ ضَلَالَةٍ (Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah).
يَدُ اللَّهِ مَعَ الْجَمَاعَةِ (Tirmidhī).
مَنْ فَارَقَ الْجَمَاعَةَ شِبْرًا فَقَدْ خَلَعَ رِبْقَةَ الْإِسْلَامِ مِنْ عُنُقِهِ (Abū Dāwūd).
The ḥadīth of Muʿādh (RA) — Book, Sunnah, then reasoning; ijmāʿ arises from the collective exercise of that third step.
Practice: the consultation of the Companions on the compilation of the Qur'an, the kharāj lands, and tarāwīḥ.

Critical / Analytical Angle

The sophisticated point is that ijmāʿ solves a problem every legal system faces — finality — and pays a price for it. Without a doctrine of settled questions, a legal order dissolves into permanent relitigation and no one can rely on the law; common law answers this with stare decisis, civil law with codification, Islam with ijmāʿ. But finality is dangerous in proportion to how it is claimed: a genuine consensus of qualified scholars closes a question rightly, while a fictitious consensus, asserted to suppress dissent, closes it wrongly and is far harder to reopen. The classical jurists were alert to this, which is why they set the bar at unanimity, restricted participation to qualified mujtahids, excluded political authority, and — in Ibn Ḥanbal's scepticism — treated most claims of consensus with suspicion. The contemporary implication follows directly: the correct modern instrument is not to manufacture ijmāʿ but to institutionalise collective ijtihād, which delivers most of the stabilising benefit while remaining explicitly revisable. A ruling that admits it can be revisited is safer than a false consensus that cannot.

Model 20-Mark Answer Skeleton

Introduction (2) — definition with each element explained; rank among the sources.
Authority (3) — 4:115, the ummah-error ḥadīth, the tawātur maʿnawī point.
Procedure, step by step (4) — question, mujtahids, independent ijtihād, deliberation, agreement, binding effect; conditions of validity.
Kinds (4) — ṣarīḥ vs sukūtī with the dispute; Companions, Madinan, later eras.
Conditions of the mujtahid (2) — and the exclusion of the public and the state.
Examples (2) — compilation of the Qur'an, tarāwīḥ, kharāj, grandmother's share.
Criticisms and collective ijtihād today (2); conclusion (1).

✍️ Full Model Answer — Exam-Ready Prose

Introduction (2 marks): Ijmāʿ is the third source of Islamic law, defined as the agreement of all qualified mujtahids of the Muslim ummah, in a given era, after the death of the Prophet ﷺ, upon a sharʿī ruling. Every word of that definition carries weight: agreement must be complete, not majoritarian; the agreers must be qualified jurists, not the general public or the ruling authority; and the process operates only after revelation itself had ceased. Ranked third after the Qur'an and Sunnah and above qiyās, a valid ijmāʿ is qaṭʿī — definitive — and once established it may not be contradicted or reopened.

Authority (3 marks): The Qur'anic basis is 4:115: وَيَتَّبِعْ غَيْرَ سَبِيلِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ نُوَلِّهِ مَا تَوَلَّّى — "and follows a path other than that of the believers, We will give him what he has taken and drive him into Hell" (al-Nisāʾ 4:115), the "way of the believers" being read as their agreed position, alongside 3:103 ("hold fast together and do not divide") and 2:143 (the ummah as witnesses over mankind, which presupposes its reliability). The ḥadīth basis is the Prophet's ﷺ statement, لَا تَجْتَمِعُ أُمَّتِي عَلَى ضَلَالَةٍ — "my ummah will not agree upon an error" (Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah), reinforced by "the hand of Allah is with the community" (Tirmidhī). Individually these reports are āḥād, but jurists argue that their collective convergence on one meaning (tawātur maʿnawī) establishes the principle even where no single chain is definitive — a point that demonstrates real command of uṣūl.

Procedure, Step by Step (4 marks): The classical procedure unfolds in sequence. First, a new question arises on which the Qur'an and Sunnah contain no explicit ruling. Second, the era's qualified mujtahids are identified. Third, each exercises independent ijtihād on the question from the primary sources and qiyās. Fourth, views are exchanged and deliberated — historically through assembly, correspondence, or the circulation of opinions, as happened when the Companions debated the compilation of the Qur'an under Abū Bakr (RA). Fifth, agreement is reached by every qualified mujtahid of that era, expressed either explicitly or through silence after some have ruled. Sixth, the consensus is recorded and becomes binding on that generation and every generation after it, subject to conditions such as the participants' qualification and, on the majority view, the inqirāḍ al-ʿaṣr requirement that the era's mujtahids die holding the position.

Kinds of Ijmāʿ (4 marks): By manner of expression, ijmāʿ ṣarīḥ — where every mujtahid states explicit agreement — is unanimously accepted as binding, while ijmāʿ sukūtī — tacit consensus through unopposed silence — is disputed: the Ḥanafīs and Ḥanbalīs generally accept it as strong evidence, while al-Shāfiʿī rejected it on the ground that silence may reflect caution or fear rather than assent. By era, the ijmāʿ of the Companions is the strongest and most verifiable category, near-universally accepted in principle; ijmāʿ of a later era is theoretically possible but practically unverifiable once the community dispersed geographically, and Mālik's acceptance of the practice of the people of Madinah as authoritative is not treated as ijmāʿ proper by the other schools.

Conditions of the Mujtahid (2 marks): Valid participation requires command of the Qur'an's legal verses, mastery of Arabic and its modes of expression, knowledge of uṣūl al-fiqh, abrogation and the occasions of revelation, awareness of the maqāṣid and of contemporary realities, and personal integrity. The general public, political authority as such, and specialists speaking outside their competence are excluded — ijmāʿ is neither a plebiscite nor a decree.

Examples (2 marks): The clearest historical instances are the compilation of the Qur'an into a single Muṣḥaf under Abū Bakr (RA) and its standardisation under ʿUthmān (RA), the twenty-rakʿah congregational tarāwīḥ instituted under ʿUmar (RA) — his own words being "what an excellent innovation this is" — the kharāj settlement on conquered lands, and the prohibition of marriage to one's grandmother, agreed by extension from 4:23.

Criticisms and Collective Ijtihād Today (2 marks): Ibn Ḥanbal's reported remark — "whoever claims ijmāʿ is a liar; perhaps people have differed" — captures the classical scepticism about verifying agreement across a dispersed ummah, and Ibn Ḥazm accordingly accepted only the ijmāʿ of the Companions. Because genuine ijmāʿ is now practically unattainable, modern scholarship has turned to ijtihād jamāʿī — collective ijtihād exercised through institutions such as the Islamic Fiqh Academy of the OIC, AAOIFI in Islamic finance, and Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology — whose rulings function as strong collective opinion rather than binding ijmāʿ, but which stabilise answers to new questions such as cryptocurrency and organ transplantation.

Conclusion (1 mark): Ijmāʿ therefore performs in Islamic law what binding precedent performs in common law — it closes settled questions — and because the jurists set its threshold so high that almost nothing after the Companions qualifies, collective ijtihād, revisable by design, has become its honest modern successor.

One-Line Conclusion for a 20-Mark Answer

Ijmāʿ is the Muslim community's guarantee that settled questions stay settled — which is why the jurists set its threshold so high that almost nothing qualifies, and why collective ijtihād, revisable by design, is the honest modern successor.

📌 Past Paper Questions — CSS 2017–2026

Every FPSC question on this topic, linked to its solved model answer. Open the year page and jump to the Q number.

Asked directly (2 times):

2017 · Q8 — Define Ijma' (consensus) and explain its different kinds. Highlight its importance in the light of the Qur'an and Sunnah. → 2017 — Islamic Studies (CSS)
2023 · Q5 — Define Ijma' (consensus) and explain its different kinds. Can legislation by a parliament of an Islamic state be regarded as a valid consensus? → 2023 — Islamic Studies (CSS)

🎯 Exam pattern: Same first half both times. Prepare the parliament debate — Iqbal's view (Reconstruction, Lecture VI) that a Muslim legislative assembly can be the modern form of Ijma, plus the objections (members not mujtahids) and the role of the Council of Islamic Ideology. 2026 MCQ: Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam = Allama Iqbal.