Lecture 1: Knowledge, Judgment, and the Foundations of Taklif

This opening lesson situates Imam al-Sanusi’s al-Muqaddimat (المقدمات), “The Premises,” as a preliminary text for aqidah (عقيدة), Islamic creed. Rather than beginning with detailed doctrines, the text establishes the worldview and epistemological tools needed for theology: What is knowledge? What is a judgment? How do we know whether a claim is rational, revealed, or empirical? Imam al-Sanusi, a Maliki Ash‘ari scholar from Tlemcen in North Africa, wrote a graded series of theological works for different levels of students, from advanced scholars to children, because he wanted Muslims to know why Islam is true rather than merely inherit it through taqlid (تقليد), blind following.

A major theme is that traditional Islamic scholarship is rooted in Arabic. This is not because of ethnic preference, but because the Qur’an was revealed in Arabic and the inherited sciences are preserved through precise Arabic terminology. Even the opening basmalah (بسملة), “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim,” is treated by the commentators with grammatical and theological care: does the “ba” mean seeking aid from Allah, seeking blessing through Allah, or accompanying an act with Allah’s name? This shows how Islamic learning begins with reverence, language, and careful analysis.

The first technical concept in the text is hukm (حكم), a judgment. Imam al-Sanusi defines it as affirming something of something else or negating it from something else. In plain terms, a judgment is a proposition such as “Allah exists” or “Zayd is not present.” The instructor emphasized that knowledge is not primarily grasping the inner essence of things, but grasping the nisbah (نسبة), the relation between subject and predicate. For example, when we say “Allah is existent,” we do not claim to know Allah’s essence; we know the truth of the relation between “Allah” and “existence.”

This connects to the definition of knowledge associated with Fakhr al-Din al-Razi: hukm jazim mutabiq lil-waqi li-mujib—a firm judgment corresponding to reality on the basis of something that warrants it. This resembles, but is not identical to, the Western philosophical formula “justified true belief.” Islamic theologians are concerned not merely with psychological belief, but with a warranted judgment that corresponds to reality. The warrant may be immediate and self-evident, called daruri (ضروري), or reached by reasoning and inference, called nazari (نظري) or through nazar (نظر).

Imam al-Sanusi then divides judgments into three types: hukm shar‘i (حكم شرعي), revealed or legal judgment; hukm ‘adi (حكم عادي), customary or empirical judgment; and hukm ‘aqli (حكم عقلي), rational judgment. A revealed judgment is known only through Allah’s communication, including the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and valid consensus. A rational judgment is known by the intellect itself, such as “one plus one is two” or “a thing cannot be both moving and still in the same respect at the same time.” An empirical or customary judgment is known through repeated observation, such as “objects fall when released” or “water boils at a certain temperature under normal conditions.”

The lesson closes by explaining taklif (تكليف), moral responsibility before Allah. A mukallaf (مكلف) is someone who has intellect, has reached puberty, and has received the true message of Islam in a reliable way. Children, those without sufficient rational capacity, and those who never received the true message are not treated the same way. In the Ash‘ari school, Ahl al-Fatrah (أهل الفترة)—those unreached or reached only by distorted information—are not held accountable in the same way and are understood to be saved by Allah’s permission. This makes the role of aql (عقل), intellect, central: reason is not placed above revelation; rather, reason is the means by which one recognizes that revelation is true.