The word · Law & life
أُصولُ الفِقْه
Usul al-Fiqh
The science of how rulings are derived: which sources count, and how they are read.
Also written · Usul al fiqh · Usool al-Fiqh · Usul ul Fiqh · Usul fiqh · Osul al-Fiqh · Usul · Usool · Usuli · principles of jurisprudence · legal theory · sources of Islamic law · roots of fiqh
The meaning
What Usul al-Fiqh means in Islam
Literally the roots of fiqh. Where fiqh gives you the answer, usul al-fiqh gives you the method: the four sources agreed by the Sunni schools are the Qur'an, the Sunnah, ijma' and qiyas, together with rules for language, abrogation and conflicting evidence. Al-Shafi'i's Risalah is the earliest surviving book devoted to the subject.
Evidence · Editorial · Our own summary, drawn from the sources named
Read beside it
Words that sit beside it
- FiqhThe human effort to work out Islamic law from its sources, and the rulings that result.الفِقْه
- Ijma'The agreement of the qualified scholars of one generation on a single ruling.إِجْماع
- QiyasAnalogy: extending a known ruling to a new case that shares the same underlying reason.قِياس
- Qawa'id FiqhiyyahLegal maxims: short principles that gather the pattern behind thousands of separate rulings.القَواعِدُ الفِقْهِيَّة
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