The history of Islamic jurisprudence has witnessed two heterogeneous yet apparently similar trends – although in two different periods of time and manifestations. One is the Akhbāriyya movement in Imāmī school, which, with a new approach to practicing sharī‘a and while negating ijtihād (legal reasoning), regards intellect as being unable to achieve legal rulings.
The second trend is the Salafiyya among the Sunnīs, which, although a basically ideological trend and not merely a jurisprudential movement, has specific views in the field of jurisprudence and religious law largely similar to those of the
khbāriyya.
An in-depth deliberation on the doctrines, major approaches, and
methodology of these two important fundamentalist trends will
reveal the existence of conformities and possibly certain interactions
between them.
The confrontation of these two trends with the process of legal reasoning, negation of rationality in the domain of ordinances, regarding the reasoning and rational arguments as unjustified in understanding religious law and complete reliance on traditions are among the issues that seem to be homogenous and consistent between the two.
It is attempted in this research to survey and ponder on some instances of the similarities of these trends, particularly their view on intellect.
Keywords: Akhbāriyya, Salafiyya, fundamentalism, legal reasoning, intellect, jurisprudence, religious law, rulings.
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