Islamic legal theory (usūl al-fiqh) is literally regarded as ’the roots of the law’ whilst Islamic jurists consider it to be the basis of Islamic jurisprudence and thus an essential aspect of Islamic law. This volume addresses the sources, methods and principles of Islamic law leading to an appreciation of the skills of independent juristic and legal reasoning necessary for deriving specific rulings from the established sources of the law. The articles engage critically with relevant traditional views to enable a diagnostic understanding of the different issues, covering both Sunnī and Shī’ī perspectives on some of the issues for comparison. The volume features an introductory overview of the subject as well as a comprehensive bibliography to aid further research. Islamic legal theory is a complex subject which challenges the ingenuity of any expert and therefore special care has been taken to select articles for their clarity as well as their quality, variety and critique to ensure an in-depth, engaging and easy understanding of what is normally a highly theoretical subject.

In the critical period when Islamic law first developed, a new breed of jurists developed a genre of legal theory treatises to explore how the fundamental moral teachings of Islam might operate as a legal system. Seemingly rhetorical and formulaic, these manuals have long been overlooked for the insight they offer into the early formation of Islamic conceptions of law and its role in social life. In this book, Rumee Ahmed shatters the prevailing misconceptions of the purpose and form of the Islamic legal treatise. Ahmed describes how Muslim jurists used the genre of legal theory to argue for individualized, highly creative narratives about the application of Islamic law while demonstrating loyalty to inherited principles and general prohibitions. These narratives are revealed through careful attention to the nuanced way in which legal theorists defined terms and concepts particular to the legal theory genre, and developed pictures of multiple worlds in which Islamic law should ideally function. Ahmed takes the reader into the logic of Islamic legal theory to uncover diverse conceptions of law and legal application in the Islamic tradition, clarifying and making accessible the sometimes obscure legal theories of central figures in the history of Islamic law. The book offers important insights about the ways in which legal philosophy and theology mutually influenced premodern jurists as they formulated their respective visions of law, ethics, and theology. The volume is the first in the Oxford Islamic Legal Studies series. Satisfying the growing interest in Islam and Islamic law, the series speaks to both specialists and those interested in the study of a legal tradition that shapes lives and societies across the globe. The series features innovative and interdisciplinary studies that explore Islamic law as it operates in shaping private decision making, binding communities, and as domestic positive law. The series also sheds new light on the history and jurisprudence of Islamic law and provides for a richer understanding of the state of Islamic law in the contemporary Muslim world, including parts of the world where Muslims are minorities.

The Risāla of al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820), the earliest preserved work of Islamic legal theory, has been understood in previous scholarship as either the elaboration of a hierarchy of sources of law (Qurʾān, Sunna, consensus, and analogical reasoning) or an extended defense of the Sunna. Through a careful rereading of this celebrated text, this book offers a comprehensive reinterpretation of the Risāla, in which Shāfiʿī formulated an all-encompassing hermeneutic that portrays the law as a tightly interlocking structure organized around defined interactions of the Qurʾān and the Sunna. Topics covered include Shāfiʿī’s creative account of the law’s architectonics, hermeneutical techniques, legal epistemology, relationship to kalām, and the role of consensus (ijmāʿ).

This volume contains ground-breaking studies on such matters as the early development of legal theory in Islam, the emergence of "us l al-fiqh," theory vis-a-vis practice, various controversies among Muslim theorists, the construction of juristic authority, reformist concepts, and the role of "qaw cid."

This book explores the relationship between custom and Islamic law and seeks to uncover the role of custom in the construction of legal rulings. On a deeper level, however, it deals with the perennial problem of change and continuity in the Islamic legal tradition (or any tradition for that matter).

David Vishanoff’s thorough and original unpacking of the Sunnī jurist al-Juwaynī’s (1028–1085) Kitāb al-Waraqāt fī uṣūl al-fiqh introduces English-speaking readers to the main concepts, terms, principles, and functions of the classical Islamic discipline of legal theory. This volume offers an ideal entry to the otherwise dense and complex mainstream Sunnī views that dominated Islamic legal thought in al-Juwaynī’s day—and that are still widely accepted today. A critical edition of al-Juwaynī’s Arabic text is also included.

Wael B. Hallaq has already established himself as one of the most eminent scholars in the field of Islamic law. In this book, first published in 1997, the author traces the history of Islamic legal theory from its early beginnings until the modern period. Initially, he focuses on the early formation of this theory, analysing its central themes and examining the developments which gave rise to a variety of doctrines. He concludes with a discussion of modern thinking about the theoretical foundations and methodology of Islamic law. In organisation, approach to the subject and critical apparatus, the book will be an essential tool for the understanding of Islamic legal theory in particular and Islamic law in general. This, in combination with an accessibility of language and style, will guarantee a readership among students and scholars and anyone interested in Islam and its evolution.

This volume addresses the structural interrelations of Islamic theoretical and practical legal reasoning, based on an analysis of six works of Islamic jurisprudence by authors who lived in Uzbekistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Algeria between 970 and 1600 CE.

Foundations of Jurisprudence: An Introduction to Imāmī Shīʿī Legal Theory is a critical edition of the Arabic text with a parallel English translation of Mabādiʾ al-wuṣūl ilā ʿilm al-uṣūl by al-ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī, introduced, edited and translated by Sayyid Amjad H. Shah Naqavi. Al-ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī participated in the leading debates of his day and applied his vast erudition in philosophy, logic, and theology to the paramount subject of jurisprudence. This text presents an exemplar of the rich revival of Shīʿī scholarship in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of the Common Era. Concise, yet comprehensive, this work sets the standard for the subsequent development and discussion of Imāmī Shīʿī legal theory, such that its influence can be traced through to modern times. This dual-text edition is indispensable for students and scholars of Imāmi Shīʿī jurisprudence.

The Epistle on Legal Theory is the oldest surviving Arabic work on Islamic legal theory and the foundational document of Islamic jurisprudence. Its author, Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i (d. 204/820), was the eponym of the Shafi'i school of legal thought, one of the four rites in Sunni Islam. This fascinating work offers the first systematic treatment in Arabic of key issues in Islamic legal thought. These include a survey of the importance of Arabic as the language of revelation, principles of textual interpretation to be applied to the Qur'an and prophetic Traditions, techniques for harmonizing apparently contradictory precedents, legal epistemology, rules of inference, and discussions of when legal interpretation is required. The author illustrates his theoretical claims with numerous examples drawn from nearly all areas of Islamic law, including ritual law, commercial law, tort law, and criminal law. The text thus provides an important window into both Islamic law and legal thought in particular and early Islamic intellectual history in general . This new translation by a leading scholar of al-Shafi'i and his thought makes available in lucid, modern English one of the earliest complete works on Islamic law—one that is centrally important for the formation of Islamic legal thought and the Islamic legal tradition. An English-only edition.