Fiqh

The human effort to work out Islamic law from its sources, and the rulings that result.

Also written · Fikh · Feqh · Fiqah · Fikih · Fiqih · Fiqhi · Islamic law · Islamic jurisprudence · jurisprudence · sharia law · law · rulings

The meaning

What Fiqh means in Islam

The word means understanding. Fiqh is not the same as shari'ah: shari'ah is the guidance God revealed, fiqh is what scholars understood of it, which is why qualified people reach different answers. Books of fiqh nearly all run in the same order: purification and prayer first, then fasting, zakat and hajj, then marriage, trade, inheritance and the courts.

Evidence · Editorial · Our own summary, drawn from the sources named

Read beside it

Words that sit beside it

Shari'ahThe whole of what God revealed as guidance: belief, worship, character and law together.الشَّريعة
Usul al-FiqhThe science of how rulings are derived: which sources count, and how they are read.أُصولُ الفِقْه
MadhhabA school of law: a settled method of deriving rulings, carried by generations of scholars.مَذْهَب
IkhtilafScholarly disagreement, which classical Islam treated as normal rather than as a crisis.اِخْتِلاف