Scholars of Islamic law point to the absence of any extant work of legal theory between the Risāla of al-Shāfiʿī and the Fuṣūl of al-Jaṣṣāṣ as a major barrier to reconstructing the history of Islamic legal thought. However, careful analysis of three major works of the Ḥanafī jurist al-Ṭaḥāwī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, Sharḥ maʿānī al-āthār and...Read More

Islamic law presents a contrast to the Western systems of civil and common law not only in its methods of legal reasoning, but in the priority of its sources as well. There is no legislation in the traditional concept of its legal system, and judicial decisions play little or no role in the determination of...Read More

This essay provides a brief introduction to legal maxims, an evidently important chapter of the juristic literature of Islam, that is particularly useful in depicting a general picture of the nature, goals and objectives of the Shari‘ah. Yet, for reasons that will presently be explained, legal maxims represent a latent development in the history of...Read More

Al-qawāʿid al-fiqhīyah or legal maxims of Islamic Law are the general rules of fiqh that portray the goals and objectives of the Sharīʿah. They are applied in various cases that come under the common rulings and play a very important role in deducing many rules of fiqh since they provide a guideline to come up...Read More