Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Yoram Erder, “The Origin of the Idris 

in the Quran: A Study of the Influence of Qumran Lit-

erature on Early Islam.” Journal of Near East Studies 49 

(1990): 339–350; Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, 

Arais al-majalis fi qisas al-anbiya, or “Lives of the Proph-

ets.” Translated by William M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. 

Brill, 2002), 83–85.

ifrit

  See 

jinni

.

ijmaa

 

(Arabic: consensus, agreement)

A technical term used in Islamic law (

fiqh

), ijmaa

was the third authoritative source after the q

Uran

and the 

sUnna

 considered by Sunni jurists when 

they made a ruling or advisory opinion (

FatWa

). In 

contrast to 

ijtihad

 (individual reasoned opinion), 

ijmaa recognized the social and practical basis 

of law. Also, unlike ijtihad, it was thought to be 

free of error. The 

Ulama

 justified using consensus 

as a source in their interpretations of the 

sharia

by invoking a 

hadith

 attributed to m

Uhammad

that said, “My community will never agree in an 

error.” They also used quranic verses for support, 

such as Q 2:143: “We have made you a middle 

community [

umma

] so that you may be witnesses 

before humankind.” Thus, jurists linked ijmaa to 

an idealized concept of Islamic community using 

the words of sacred scripture and the Prophet.

Ijmaa was originally rooted in pre-Islamic 

Arabian custom, which continued to develop in 

the Arabian Peninsula and in newly conquered 

towns and settlements throughout the Middle 

East in the wake of the Arab-Islamic conquests 

of the seventh and eighth centuries. It gradually 

evolved from being a sociocultural practice to a 

religious one. Early scholars, judges, and admin-

istrators based their judgments on the Quran and 

sunna (customary practice) of localities, such as 

m

edina

 and Kufa in southern i

raq

. When they 

needed to recommend what the correct sunna for 

Muslims to follow should be, they looked to the 

ijmaa of the local community. Even the selection 

of hadith to substantiate what was sunna was 

done in conformity to consensus. After al-Shafii’s 

efforts to systematize the science of Islamic juris-

prudence in the early ninth century, consensus 

was increasingly identified with the practice of 

the Muslim community during Muhammad’s life-

time as established by the jurists who constituted 

the chief authorities of the different law schools. 

Defined largely in religious terms, it gained a kind 

of perfection or infallibility in the eyes of Sunni 

jurists that ijtihad and analogical reasoning (qiyas) 

never had. The assertion of infallibility for Mus-

lim consensus helped give coherence to the legal 

schools, make them more inclined to accept each 

other’s authority, and accept or reject customs and 

practices originating in non-Muslim societies and 

other religions. Jurists belonging to the Twelve-