Hardship Begets Facility: Legal Maxim 3

Legal Maxim 3

المشقة تجلب التيسير

Hardship begets facility

The meaning of this axiom is that necessity brings about dispensations from Allah Most High, as al-Jarhazi explained in his Mawahib. The basis for this axiom is derived from the verse: “ No hardship has been made for you in the religion," and: “Allah desires ease for you and not hardship." This maxim is also based on the hadith: " I have been sent with an easy, accommodating religion." 

Al-Lahji mentioned that the scholars view all dispensations in the sacred law as a derivation from this legal maxim. The reasons for ease in the sacred law are seven:

1. Travel
2. Illness
3. Coercion
4. Forgetfulness
5. Being ignorant of a ruling
6. Difficulty
7. Decrease

According to Imam al-Suyuti, the criterion for hardship to beget facility is of two types:

1. That which has no effect on easing the ruling, usually found in worship, such as the difficulty of using cold in ablution or the difficulty of fasting in severe heat.
2. That which has an effect, not usually found in worship. This type has various levels:
   
   
    1. A very severe difficulty, such as fearing for one's own life. This is a cause for ease and dispensation.
   2. Minimal difficulty, such as a mild headache. This is not a cause for ease.
   3. An average hardship. A hardship that is closer to a level one hardship necessitates dispensation, while hardships in close proximity to level two do not.  
   
   

Facility of six types:

1. Takhfif isqat: such as Friday prayer when excuses are present.
2. Takhfif tanqis: such as shortening prayers due to travel.
3. Takhfif ibdal: such as dry ablution replacing a regular ablution. 
4. Takhfif taqdim: such as jam' taqdim in travel.
5. Takhfif ta'khir: such as jam' ta'khir in travel.
6. Takhfif tarkhis: This type includes difficult matters that the Lawgiver has made easy, such as using impure medicine.

Dispensations are of various types:

1. Obligatory-- an example of this is eating unslaughtered dead when one believes that death is imminent if one does not consume the unslaughtered meat.
2. Recommended--an example of this is shortening prayers when the journey is three marhala. 
3. That which is better to leave, such a wiping over leather socks. 
4.  That which is disliked to do, such as shortening on a journey less than three marhala.