Is the authority to render something fard based on ijtihad according to the hadith "If I knew it would not be difficult for you, I would render tahajjud prayer fard"?

- Is the authority of the Prophet (pbuh) to render something fard based on ijtihad according to the hadith "If I knew it would not be difficult for you, I would render tahajjud prayer fard"?

- Did the Prophet (pbuh) have the authority to render something fard based on ijtihad other than five daily prayers, or to render fasting fard or to render something haram based on ijtihad? Did Allah give the Prophet such authority?

- They say it does not exist. Is what is meant by rendering fard wajib or fard?

Dear Brother / Sister,

- The summary of the origin of the hadith mentioned as “If I knew it would not be difficult for you, I would render tahajjud prayer fard” in the question is as follows:  

Hz. Aisha narrates: One night, the Prophet (pbuh) got up and went to the mosque. He performed tahajjud prayer there. Some people saw him and went to the mosque to pray like him. The next day, more people heard about it and there were more people in the mosque the next night. The number of the people who came to the mosque to pray increased more on the third night. There were so many people on the fourth night that the mosque was not big enough for them. However, the Messenger of Allah did not come that night.

He came to the mosque in the morning, led the morning prayer and addressed the congregation as follows:

"Your coming to the mosque last night was not unknown by me. However, I feared that tahajjud prayer would be fard for you and you would not be able to perform it every night.” (Muslim, Salah, 178)

As it is seen, the Prophet’s (pbuh) rendering something fard is not in question in the hadith. The statement in the internet, whose source is given as Muslim, is completely wrong. We have not found any statement like that in Muslim. It was necessary to correct it first. 

- The main issue in the question is whether the Prophet (pbuh) had the authority to make some decrees, which are not clearly seen in the Quran.

There are different views regarding the issue but according to Ahl as-Sunnah scholars, the Prophet had that authority and it was given to him by Allah. In the Quran, Allah orders us to obey the Prophet (pbuh) regarding the issue.

“…So, take what the Messenger assigns to you, and deny yourselves that which he withholds from you. And fear Allah. for Allah is strict in Punishment.” (al-Hashr, 59/7)

There are lessons for us in the verse above and similar ones.

- Acting upon those verses, the greats scholars of the ummah of Islam like Imam Shafii point out that it is obligatory to act in accordance with the hadiths reported through a sound chain.

- It is a fact unanimously agreed by Ahl as-Sunnah scholars that there are two sources of the Islamic decrees and that the first one of them is the Quran and the second one is the Sunnah (the decrees made by the Prophet). There are also two secondary sources called qiyas (analogy) and ijtihad accepted as religious evidence besides them.

“Know it very well that whatever the Messenger of Allah made unlawful is the same as what Allah made unlawful.” (Tirmidhi, Ilm, 10)

The statement of the hadith above is very clear.

"O ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you. If ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger, if ye do believe in Allah and the Last Day: That is best, and most suitable for final determination." (an-Nisa, 4/59)

According to the Islamic scholars, what is meant by the command "if ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger" in the verse is to refer to the Quran and the Prophet (pbuh) when he is alive, and to the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh) after his death. (Abdulghani Abdulkhaliq, Hujjiyatus-Sunnah, 298)

Imam Shafii states the following in the interpretation of the verse above: That the word "obey" is mentioned in the verse for Allah and is repeated for the Prophet (pbuh) aims to point out that it is necessary to obey his orders and prohibitions outside the Quran too. As it is seen in the phrase "and those charged with authority among you", the word "obey" is not repeated for them; on the contrary, it is added to the obedience to Allah and His Messenger, which aims to show that the obedience to them is not absolute but that it depends on their compliance with the book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger. (Imam Shafii, ar-Risala, 79-80)

- The “prohibition of two sisters in wedlock at one and the same time” (an-Nisa, 4/23) exists in the Quran. The Prophet (pbuh) made and additional decree stating that "a woman cannot be married to the same man at the same time with her paternal aunt and maternal aunt".

According to what Qurtubi states, that decree, which imposed by the Prophet (pbuh), was accepted by the consensus of the ummah. (see Qurtubi, the interpretation of the verse in question)

Indeed, the decree above was accepted by the scholars of the four madhhabs and was formulated as a rule as follows in fiqh resources: “It is not permissible for two women, who are not permissible for a man to marry, to be married to a man at the same time.” (see W. Zuhayli, al-Fiqhul-Islami, 7/142)

- Badiuzzaman Said Nursi explains in summary the issue of the ijtihad of the Prophet (pbuh) as follows:  

“The Second is implicit revelation. The essence and gist of this is also based on revelation or inspiration, but its explanation and description were left to the Messenger (UWBP). When he explained and described such revelation, sometimes he again relied on revelation, or on inspiration, or sometimes he spoke in terms of his own insight. When he resorted to his own interpretation, he either relied on the perceptive power given him on account of his prophetic mission, or he spoke as a human being and conformably to usage, custom and the level of common comprehension.” (Mektubat, p. 93)

One should look at fiqh books regarding the issue in order to understand what the orders and prohibitions of the Prophet express as fard, wajib, sunnah, mubah, makruh and haram.

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