Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is often described as the human understanding and practices of the sharia, that is human understanding of the divine Islamic law as revealed in the Quran and the sunnah. Fiqh expands and develops Shariah through interpretation (ijtihad) of the Quran and Sunnah by Islamic jurists (ulama) and is implemented by the rulings (fatwa) of jurists on questions presented to them. Thus, whereas sharia is considered immutable and infallible by Muslims, fiqh is considered fallible and changeable. Fiqh deals with the observance of rituals, morals and social legislation in Islam as well as economic and political system. In the modern era, there are four prominent schools (madh'hab) of fiqh within Sunni practice, plus two within Shi'a practice. A person trained in fiqh is known as a faqīh.
A fatwā is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Faqih in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a mufti, and the act of issuing fatwas is called iftāʾ. Fatwas have played an important role throughout Islamic history, taking on new forms in the modern era.
Sharia is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and this referencing is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its interpretations by Islamic scholars. Fiqh, practical application side of sharia in a sense, was elaborated over the centuries by legal opinions issued by qualified jurists and sharia has never been the sole valid legal system in Islam historically; it has always been used alongside customary law from the beginning, and applied in courts by ruler-appointed judges, integrated with various economic, criminal and administrative laws issued by Muslim rulers.
Ijtihad is an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question. It is contrasted with taqlid. According to classical Sunni theory, ijtihad requires expertise in the Arabic language, theology, revealed texts, and principles of jurisprudence, and is not employed where authentic and authoritative texts are considered unambiguous with regard to the question, or where there is an existing scholarly consensus (ijma). Ijtihad is considered to be a religious duty for those qualified to perform it. An Islamic scholar who is qualified to perform ijtihad is called as a "mujtahid".
The Hanafi school is the oldest of the four major Sunni Islamic schools of jurisprudence (fiqh). It was established by the 8th century Kufan scholar Abu Hanifa, a Tabi‘i whose legal views were preserved primarily by two of his disciples, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani. It is considered one of the most widely accepted legal school of thought (maddhab) amongst Sunni Muslim community and is called the Madhhab of Jurists. Many Hanafi Muslims follow the Maturidi school of theology.
A madhhab, also spelled as mazhab, is a school of thought within fiqh.
A mufti is an Islamic jurist qualified to issue a nonbinding opinion (fatwa) on a point of Islamic law (sharia). The act of issuing fatwas is called iftāʾ. Muftis and their fatwas played an important role throughout Islamic history, taking on new roles in the modern era.
ʾUṣūl al-fiqh or Principles of Islamic jurisprudence are traditional methodological principles used in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) for deriving the rulings of Islamic law (sharia).
Early Islamic law placed importance on formulating standards of argument, which gave rise to a "novel approach to logic" in Kalam . However, with the rise of the Mu'tazili philosophers, who highly valued Aristotle's Organon, this approach was displaced by the older ideas from Hellenistic philosophy. The works of al-Farabi, Avicenna, al-Ghazali and other Muslim logicians who often criticized and corrected Aristotelian logic and introduced their own forms of logic, also played a central role in the subsequent development of European logic during the Renaissance.
Mubāḥ is an Arabic word roughly meaning "permitted", which has technical uses in Islamic law.
Dhia' ul-Dīn 'Abd al-Malik ibn Yūsuf al-Juwaynī al-Shafi'ī was a Persian Sunni scholar famous for being the foremost leading jurisconsult, legal theoretician and Islamic theologian of his time. His name is commonly abbreviated as al-Juwayni; he is also commonly referred to as Imam al-Haramayn meaning "leading master of the two holy cities", that is, Mecca and Medina. He acquired the status of a mujtahid in the field of fiqh and usul al-fiqh. Highly celebrated as one of the most important and influential thinkers in the Shafi'i school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence, he was considered as the virtual second founder of the Shafi'i school, after its first founder Imam al-Shafi'i. He was also considered a major figurehead within the Ash'ari school of theology where he was ranked equal to the founder, Imam al-Ash'ari. He was given the honorific titles of Shaykh of Islam, The Glory of Islam, The Absolute Imam of all Imams.
Joseph Franz Schacht was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading Western scholar on Islamic law, whose Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (1950) is still considered a centrally important work on the subject. The author of many articles in the first and second editions of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Schacht also co-edited, with C. E. Bosworth, the second edition of The Legacy of Islam for the Legacy series of Oxford University Press and authored a textbook under the title An Introduction to Islamic Law (1964).
Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā al-Shāṭibī was an Andalusí Sunni Islamic legal scholar following the Maliki madhab. He died in 1388 in Granada. Imam Shatibi's full name was "Ibrahim bin Mosa bin Muhammad al-Shatibi al-Gharnati". His family descended from the Banu Lakhm. His kunya was "Abu Ishaq", and his surnames were "Al-Lakhmi", "Al-Gharnati", "Al-Maliki" and "As-Shatibi". The date and place of his birth are unknown. However, one of his surnames, "As-Shatibi", points to the city Xàtiva, which indicates that he was a descendant of migrants from that town.
Islamic criminal law is criminal law in accordance with Sharia. Strictly speaking, Islamic law does not have a distinct corpus of "criminal law". It divides crimes into three different categories depending on the offense – Hudud, Qisas, and Tazir. Some add the fourth category of Siyasah, while others consider it as part of either Hadd or Tazir crimes.
Various sources of Islamic Laws are used by Islamic jurisprudence to elaborate the body of Islamic law. In Sunni Islam, the scriptural sources of traditional jurisprudence are the Holy Qur'an, believed by Muslims to be the direct and unaltered word of God, and the Sunnah, consisting of words and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the hadith literature. In Shi'ite jurisprudence, the notion of Sunnah is extended to include traditions of the Imams.
Mustaʾmīn or Musta'man is a historical Islamic term for a non-Muslim foreigner temporarily residing in Muslim lands with aman, or guarantee of short-term safe-conduct, affording the protected status of dhimmi without the payment of jizya.
The Shafi'i school, or Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by Muslim theologian Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, "the father of Muslim jurisprudence", in the early 9th century.
Al-Hidayah fi Sharh Bidayat al-Mubtadi, commonly referred to as al-Hidayah, is a 12th-century legal manual by Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani, which is considered to be one of the most influential compendium of Hanafi jurisprudence (fiqh). It has been subject of numerous commentaries. The book played a key role in the development and amalgamation of Islamic and British law known as Anglo-Muhammadan law.
The Ẓāhirī school or Zahirism is a Sunnī school of Islamic jurisprudence founded in the 9th century by Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī, a Muslim scholar, jurist, and theologian of the Islamic Golden Age. It is characterized by strict adherence to literalism and reliance on the outward (ẓāhir) meaning of expressions in the Quran and ḥadīth literature; the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba), for sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa); and rejection of analogical deduction (qiyās) and societal custom or knowledge (urf), used by other schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
Islamic neo-traditionalism is a contemporary strand of Sunni Islam that emphasizes adherence to the four principal Sunni schools of law (madhahib), belief in one of the Ash'ari, Maturidi and Athari schools of theology and the practice of tasawuff (Sufism), which its followers consider to be representative of the classical Sunni tradition.
