Should Ulama Become Professional?

To date, there are many professional positions available for many of us, who claim to have such expertise in particular subject matter. The same section of society which subscribes to this idea is the ulama. The ulamas, claim to have a total authority on religious matter, use such position to maintain their exclusive right on discussing religion. Perhaps they are right - religion doesn't belong to the public. It belongs only to ulama at their disposal.

What professional really means? The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines it, which best suits this context, as the skilled practitioner or an expert. This verifies the claim of ulama that only they have the right to discuss any issue with respect to religion. However, in Islam, religion plays a very important role in determining the course of mankind. Religion provides set of rules; guideliness to ensure the mankind achieves harmony both in worldly activities as well as in the hereafter.

However, considering the ever-changing development of mankind, from science to technology as well as teology, the ulama must also evolve according to the era which they belong. Many discoveries are made almost on daily basis. Some are controversial in nature and some are very cheesy, to say the least. Subsequently, these discoveries affect our daily life both explicitly and implicitly, as they somehow relate to the Islamic values which we are subscribed to.

The aforementioned word 'evolve' here does not mean they have to compromise the religion in order to suit the need of time. It is rather to say, to readily accept any positive values from the era which do not contradict with Islamic monotheism values and incorporate them into the religion. The principle of the religion, revolves around aqeedah and tauheed, will remain as it is. But in mu'ammalah, which is daily action which pertains to society interaction, will evolve according to human needs. Usually, mu'ammalah has clear relationship with fiqh interpretation because aqeedah and tauhid are two concrete and established subjects since the beginning of Islam. No question about it.

Sayyid Sabiq in Fiqh us Sunnah clearly defined fiqh as the derivative of intellectual acitivity which in need of exercising analogical reasoning. Fiqh belongs the latter generation when many new situations arise and they demand exercise of one's mind as to the application of the relevational injunctions and the Prophet's commandments to them. The approach to fiqh when it comes to deal with issues in shari'ah, as demonstrated by Mu'az ibn Jabal when he was sent to Yemen by the Prophet, is by looking into the Qur'an, the sunnah and lastly if he could not find anything in these two sources, he would exercise his judgement. The Prophet approveds his approach and this has become the basis of fiqh formulation.

History has proven that the greatest Muslim scholars like Ibnu Sina, Al Kindi, Al Jabra and those who shared the same paradigm as theirs mastered the knowledge of Qur'an long before they made their greatest discoveries of science. Only then they could justify every discovery they made and made it useful to the benefit of mankind.

Our ulama nowadays are trapped from the classical fiqh interpretation which was formed for more than a century ago. The fatigue caused by confining themselves only to such interpretation without studying the subject matter thoroughly with respect to the time it was interpreted and its historical background, will only backfire the dynamic nature of the religion itself.

Issues such as cell stem research, cloning, space exploration, application of technology and many more pose many questions to the integral of Islamic values in our daily life. Our ulamas must accomodate themselves with enormous amount of knowledge in order to evaluate the situation on case by case basis. Unless if they are ready to follow the ulama of the past like Al Kindi, Ibn Rusyh, Ibnu Sina and the like, they will be relic and irrelevant to our daily life.