During the era ofthe Companions (sahabah),the Muslims used to extract the AHkam shar’aiahfrom the Book and the Sunnahby themselves.The judges,when tackling the disputes among people,would deduce by themselves the hukmshar’ai for every issue or event that they were faced with.The rulers,starting with the Ameeral-Mu’mineento the Wulat and others,would themselves deduce the AHkam shar’aiahto solve every problem that arose during their ruling.Abu-Musa al Ash’ari and ShuraiH (raa) were two judges (qadi) who deduced the rules (AHkam) and judged by their own ijtihad. Mu’adh ibn Jabal (r.a) was a governor (wali) at the time ofthe Prophet and used to deduce aHkam and ruled in his wilayahby his own ijtihad.Abu Bakr and Umar (ra) both deduced aHkamby themselves during their ruling and both ruled the people with the ijtihadeach ofthem had deduced.Muawiya and Amr ibn al ‘Aas were two governors who deduced aHkamfor themselves by their own ijtihadand ruled people in accordance with it in their provinces.In spite ofthe ijtihadundertaken by the judges and governors,the Khaleefah used to adopt certain aHkamand to order their execution by the people who would be obliged themselves to implement the adopted rules and to leave their own opinion and ijtihadon those rules.This is because the hukmshar’ai states that the Imam’sdecree is to be executed openly and covertly. Examples ofthis is Abu Bakr’s adoption that the pronouncement ofdivorce three times in one sitting constitutes only one divorce,and his adoption that funds should be equally distributed among Muslims irrespective ofthe time when they embraced Islam or any other matter.
