موقف الدِّيُوبَنْدِيَّة من علم الرسول

The purpose of this research is to introduce, describe, and study the notion of Deobandīes – a sub-sect of the Sunni, Maturidi, Hanafi, and Sufi schools of thought, as they claim – regarding the knowledge of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) of the unseen, their evidence from Hadīths, their approach to understanding, and their inductions from these Hadīths. This study does not criticize the inductions or narrations because we consider it as the next step, which is impossible without the very basic understanding of the problem that can only be done in descriptive study. To address the challenge that the Muslim ummah faces in the form of controversies between its sects like Deobandīes and Barēlwīes – a sub-sect of the Sunni, Maturidi, Hanafi, and Sufi schools of thought, as they claim – is the significance of our study. The benefit of confining with only the introduction and description without analytical criticism is to cover the matter from its different aspects to ease the next step, which is analysis and criticism for coming researches. To collect the data available in dissimilar shapes from varied sources and organize it in a neo figure is one of the peculiarities of our study. We needed to apply structuralism as our method to understand the background of this topic. That’s why we were compelled to mention Barēlwīes too at some points where needed because the logic of some arguments, inductions, and illations of Deobandīes can’t be understood properly but in the context of Barēlwīes, for they are either in answer to them or addressing any issue regarding them. Thus, this description should not be taken as a comparative study.

We see that Deobandīes do prove their notion by inferring their reasons from logical and traditional arguments, namely, Quran, Sunnah, linguistics, logic, philosophy, and other scientific sources. However, our research is concise with purely Hadīth arguments. This study contains abstract, preface, introduction, the literature review, definition of Deobandīes, their opinion regarding this topic, their proofs from Hadīths, their inductions from them, conclusion, and bibliography.

We conclude that there is a contradiction in the apparent statements of the Deoband scholars or in their position in general. In our opinion, there are two ways to address this riddle. First, we must divide this contradiction into two parts: it is either between the different sayings of one single scholar or between the sayings of different scholars. Now, to address each kind, we have two ways. If the contradiction is in the sayings of one scholar, we can remove it either by cancellation or by reconciliation. Cancellation means that he had an opinion at a certain time but changed his point of view at another time, which is to say abrogation, if the contradiction cannot be reconciled. The second way is the possibility of reconciling the two different sayings, and we will mention it at the end.

The second kind is the difference between the sayings of different scholars, not between the two sayings of one scholar. This contradiction can also be addressed either by differentiation or by reconciliation. As for differentiation, it means that each scholar has a unique opinion that contradicts the other. Therefore, we should not analyze this subject under one title that groups all the Deoband scholars together, such as "The notion of the Deobandī school of thought." Instead, we must differentiate between them and analyze the opinion of each Deobandī scholar separately. In this way, a Deobandī scholar may face the infidelity verdict of another Deobandī scholar.

Regarding reconciliation, we can say that the Deoband scholars differentiate between the concept of “news of the unseen” and the expression “knowledge of the unseen”. The former is established for the Messenger (pbuh) of Allah almighty, and the latter is considered polytheism according to their claim, because it is one of the attributes of Allah Almighty that is specific to him. Furthermore, what is established for the Messenger (pbuh) of Allah almighty is also categorized as “being informed about news/the unseen”, while negation is regarding the rest of the kind of information. Additionally, “being informed about news/unseen” is not absolute and total, but rather it is limited to some or part of the information. By reconciling the various sayings of the Deobandī scholars in this way, we can evaluate their notion under one umbrella since this is the only common ground among the different sayings of Deobandī scholars.