Editing Ijma (section)

===Sunni view===
Sunni scholars argued that the nature of human society was such that a community could not mistakenly agree that a statement had been made, and further that the consensus of the ''ummah'' about its inability to agree upon an error in itself certified the authenticity of this hadith.<ref name=brown-56>{{cite book|last1 = Brown|first1 = Jonathan A.C.|author-link = Jonathan A.C. Brown|title = Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy|date = 2014|publisher = [[Oneworld Publications]]|isbn = 978-1780744209|url = https://archive.org/details/misquotingmuhamm0000brow|url-access = registration|access-date = 4 June 2018|ref = JACBMM2014|page = [https://archive.org/details/misquotingmuhamm0000brow/page/n81 56]}}</ref> [[Sunni]] Muslims and Scholars regard ijmā' as one of the secondary sources of [[Sharia|Sharia law]], just after the divine revelation of the [[Qur'an]], and the prophetic practice known as [[Sunnah]]. Thus so a position of Majority should always be taken into consideration, when a matter cannot be concluded from the Qur'an or Hadith.  

There are differing views over who is considered a part of this consensus, whether "the consensus is needed only among the scholars of a particular school, or legists, or legists of an early era, or the Companions, or scholars in general, or the entire Muslim community."<ref name="Forte-1978-7">{{cite journal|last1=Forte|first1=David F.|title=Islamic Law; the impact of Joseph Schacht|journal=Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review|date=1978|volume=1|page=7 |url=http://www.soerenkern.com/pdfs/islam/IslamicLawTheImpactofJosephSchacht.pdf |access-date=19 April 2018}}</ref><ref>See F. Ziadeh, ''Lawyers and the rule of law, and liberalism in modern Egypt'' 146-47 (1968) supra note 4, at 118</ref><ref>see generally: K. Faruki, ''ISLAMIC JURISPRUDENCE'' 68 (1962)</ref><ref>D. Mullah & M. Hidadjatullah, ''Principles of Mahomedan Law'' xxii (16th ed. 1968)</ref><ref>Aqil Ahmad,  ''A Text Book of Mohammadan Law'' 15 (4th rev. ed. 1966), supra note 22, at 17</ref><ref>Aziz Ahmad, ''Islamic Law in Theory and Practice'' 2 (1956), Supra note 20, at 43</ref>

[[Malik ibn Anas]] held the view that the religiously binding consensus was only the consensus of Muhammad's [[Sahaba|companions]] and the direct successors of those companions in the city of [[Medina]].<ref>Muhammad Muslehuddin, "Philosophy of Islamic Law and Orientalists," Kazi Publications, 1985, p. 146</ref>

According to [[Iraqi people|Iraqi]] academic [[Majid Khadduri]], [[Al-Shafi'i]] held the view that religiously binding consensus had to include all of the Muslim community in every part of the world, both the religiously learned and the layman.<ref>[[Majid Khadduri]], Introduction to [[Al-Shafi'i]]'s [[Al-Risala (book)|al-Risala]], pg.33</ref><ref name=mansoor>Mansoor Moaddel, ''Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse'', pg. 32. [[Chicago]]: [[University of Chicago Press]], 2005.</ref> Thus, if even one individual out of millions would hold a differing view, then consensus would not have been reached. In an attempt to define consensus in a form which was more likely to ever occur, [[Al-Ghazali]] expanding on al-Shafi'i's definition to define consensus as including all of the Muslim community in regard to religious principles and restricting the meaning to only the religiously learned in regard to finer details.<ref>[[Majid Khadduri]], Introduction to [[Al-Shafi'i]]'s [[Al-Risala (book)|al-Risala]], pg.38-39</ref>

[[Abu Hanifa]], [[Ahmad ibn Hanbal]] and [[Dawud al-Zahiri]], on the other hand, considered this consensus to only include the companions of Muhammad, excluding all generations which followed them, in Medina and elsewhere.<ref>Muhammad Muslehuddin, "Philosophy of Islamic Law and Orientalists," Kazi Publications, 1985, p. 81</ref><ref name="farooq">Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq, "The Doctrine of Ijma: Is there a consensus?," June 2006</ref>

Views within [[Sunni Islam]] branched off even further in later generations, with Abu Bakr Al Jassas, a hanafi scholar, defining even a simple majority view as constituting consensus and [[Ibn Taymiyyah]] restricting consensus to the view of the religiously learned only.<ref name="farooq"/> [[Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari]]'s position was not entirely clear, as modern scholarship has attributed to him both the view that consensus means a simple majority,<ref name="farooq"/> and that it means only the consensus of the companions of Muhammad.<ref>[[Devin J. Stewart]], "Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari's ''al-Bayan 'an Usul al-Ahkam'' and the Genre of Usul al-Fiqh in Ninth Century Baghdad," pg. 339. Taken from ''Abbasid Studies: Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies, Cambridge, 6–10 January 2002''. Edited by James Montgomery. [[Leuven]]: Peeters Publishers and the Department of Oriental Studies, 2004.</ref>

According to Ahmad Hasan, the majority view is split between two possibilities: that religiously binding consensus is the consensus of the entire Muslim community, or that religiously binding consensus is just the consensus of the religiously learned.<ref>Ahmad Hasan, "The Doctrine of Ijma': A Study of the Juridical Principle of Consensus," New Delhi, India: Kitab Bhaban, 2003, pg.81</ref> The names of two kinds of consensus are:
* ''ijma al-ummah'' - a whole community consensus.
* ''ijma al-aimmah'' - a consensus by religious authorities.<ref name="Standke2008">{{cite book|author=Corinna Standke|title=Sharia - The Islamic Law|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uWR_4BTqtBYC&pg=PA4|access-date=9 June 2012|date=30 August 2008|publisher=GRIN Verlag|isbn=978-3-640-14967-4|pages=4–5}}</ref>