The Shaykh’s clarification of his experience with the Tahrir Party and his meeting with its leader, Shaykh Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani

The Shaykh : What I learned from that association and debate, and from that exposure, is something more, and historically it is the first thing: I visited Shaykh Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani when he first arrived in Damascus. Forgive me for not giving the date, as I do not care about it; it was roughly at the beginning of the party’s spread in our area in Syria. He stayed in a school there in Damascus, close to... its name is: Deir Yassin School. Some of our brothers invited me to meet him to get to know his principles. From that meeting, I understood that the scientific methodology upon which he based his party and his call to it is based on an eclectic methodology from the schools of jurisprudence, and not on the pure scientific methodology that does not look at, or does not set its desired goal as a premise and the evidence as a conclusion. Rather, he sets what he wants, then seeks evidence for it from what he finds in the depths of the books. As for surrendering the leadership of his mind, thought, and self to what the evidence leads to, no. So when I asked him in that first meeting about his methodology, he answered me: that he does not follow a specific school of jurisprudence, but he takes from every school what suits the era. This method is very dangerous, and upon this is based every jurist of this time, because in reality, when they grew up with religion by closing the door of independent legal reasoning, they found that there are issues—as we hinted at previously—that require independent legal reasoning, and they are unable to perform independent legal reasoning. So they take from every school what suits the public benefit, they claim. I know, for example, a Syrian from among the famous writers who has some knowledge of jurisprudence in the Hanafi school. He was one of the most severe enemies of the Salafi call, because it adopts a position contrary to what the Shari'ah courts are upon in some of their matters, including: pronouncing divorce with the phrase "three times." So he would oppose the Salafi call, because it adopts the contrary and says: that this divorce is considered one divorce. When the directive came from some governments, and with the direction of some lawyers like al-Samhouri Pasha, that now divorce matters are problematic and must be solved, and executing divorce with the phrase "three times" does not solve the problem, so we will return to adopting the school of Ibn Taymiyyah, because it solves the problem, not because it is the correct one in terms of the evidence of the Sunnah or the Book. So you see such a person, who is mentioned as being among the most extreme in fanaticism for the Hanafi school, when it is said to him: the evidence and the authentic hadith are contrary to what you are upon, he rages and roars. And then he adopts the law that agrees with that which, when mentioned to him, would make him rage and roar. Upon this path and upon this eclecticism was based the school, or was based the thought of the Tahrir Party. He has several treatises; I was among the first to look at his book: "The System of Islam," "The Islamic Economy," "The Caliphate," and other treatises after my time with them. I found him following this trend. And this, in reality, requires indifference to the authenticity or weakness of the hadith. The hadith that suits the public benefit is, as they say: "a good hadith." And therefore his books are full of known weak hadiths, some of which have no basis in the books of the Sunnah. And all his excuse is that he picked them up from some of the school-specific books. So in this meeting, I knew this methodology from his tongue, and then I found it applied in his treatises and books.