Islam and Human Rights — Page 10
Isl am and Hum an R ights 10 followed after them have, through their unremitting labours sustained through centuries, not only enriched and embellished Muslim Jurisprudence, but made an invaluable contribution to the development of the Science of Law and to what that eminent international jurist C. Wilfred Jenks, has called the Com mon Law of Mankind. They have thus laid the juristic world under a heavy debt of gratitude. But if one might, without impertinence, venture so to describe a portion of their intellectual exercises, they built not only truly but more vastly than was needed. In their studies they did not content themselves with considering the concrete and practical situations that needed to be resolv ed, but travelled on to the theoretical and hypothetical, which might never be encountered. They conceived, no doubt, that they were in this manner widening the horizon of jurispru dence, but as it proved, they succeeded only in restricting it. Their speculations concerning hypothetical problems and situations served to freeze the further development of jurisprudence, which over a long period thereafter became more speculative than constructive. Those of lesser stature who followed them, finding that little of the practical or even of the hypothetical was left for the exercise of their scholarship, talent