Terms Of Islamic Jurisprudence

Abstract

For every knowledge and art, its principles play a pivotal role in understanding it. That’s why its rectors and leaders put some principles for their followers to understand that knowledge. Similarly Islamic jurists (fuqaha) also put some principles for learning of ilm-e-fiqh (jurisprudence). There are some sources from which Islamic jurists derive rules; some of them are those on which jurists have consensus while others are those on which they do not agree with each other at all. The main and pivotal source of Islamic jurisprudence is The Holy Book (Al-Quran) and the second one is Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (SWW) and the third and fourth is Ijma (consensus of the opinions of jurists on an issue) and Qiyas (analogical deduction) respectively, which are based on Quran and Sunnah. These are those basic sources which are agreed by jurists. Some of sub-sources like istis’haab-ul-haal (presumption of continuity), sad-e-zara’e (blocking the means), istihsan (equity in Islamic law), masaalih-e-mursala (consideration of public interest), urf (custom), etc are also applicable among them but they do not agree in these sources. This article explains in detail these basic sources and sub-sources along with the basic differences among jurists with example.