Fiqh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of a series on the Islamic Jurisprudence – a discipline of Islamic studies

Fields

economical banking Riba Murabaha Takaful Sukuk Inheritance political Political aspects leadership marital Marriage Contract Mahr Nikah Nikah Mut‘ah Sexuality Techniques Masturbation Talaq criminal Zina – extramarital sex Hudud - punishments Gambling etiquettical Sex segregation Mahram Honorifics theological Baligh Salat Sawm Hajj hygienical Islamic cleanliness Wudu Ghusl Tayammum Miswak dietary laws Dhabiĥa – slaughter Alcohol toilet etiquette Najis military Ma malakat aymanukum This box: view • talk • edit

Arabic

فقه

Transliteration

Fiqh

Translation

"Islamic jurisprudence"

Fiqh (Arabic: فقه) is Islamic jurisprudence. It is an expansion of what is called the Divine Law (Arabic: Sharia), complemented by the rulings (Arabic: fatwa) of Islamic jurists (Arabic: Ulema) to direct the lives of Muslims.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Introduction 3 Muslim Jurist: Ulema 4 Methodology : Usul al-fiqh 5 Fields of jurisprudence 6 Methodologies of jurisprudence Usul al-fiqh (أصول الفقه) 6.1 The four schools of Sunni Islam 6.2 Salafi 6.3 Ja'fari jurisprudence 6.4 Qur'an alone 7 See also 8 External links

[edit] Etymology

Fiqh literally means "comprehension" or "understanding," as seen in the Qur'an (Aale Imran, 7 and 4:162). Yet, Fiqh in Islamic terminology means: to extract religious rulings on practical matters from the main sources of Islam.

[edit] Introduction

There are cases where the Qur'an give a clearly defined and concrete answer on how do deal with different issues. This include on how to perform the ritual purification (Arabic: wudu) before the obligatory daily prayers (Arabic: salat):

On other issues, the Qur'an alone is not enough to make things clear. For example, the Qur'an states that one needs to engage in daily prayers (Arabic: salat) and fast (Arabic: sawm) during the month of Ramadan, however, the Qur'an does not define how to engage in those issues. The details to those issues can be found in what is called the tradition of Muhammad (Arabic: Sunnah). This is true for most detailed issues, thus the Qur'an and Sunnah are the basis for the Islamic Divine Law (Arabic: Sharia).

However, the Muslim jurists (Arabic: Fuqaha) do not agree always on how to interpret the Qur'an and Sunnah to arive to the Sharia. This division of interpretation in more detailed issues has resulted in different schools of thought (Arabic: madh'hab).

And with regard to some topics, the Qur'an and Sunnah are simply silent. In those cases, the Muslim jurists (Arabic: Fuqaha) try to arrive to some conclusions using other tools. Sunni jurists use analogy (Arabic: Qiyas) and historical consensus of the community (Arabic: Ijma). The conclusions arrived with the aid of this additional tools constitute a wider array of laws than Sharia constitute of, and is called Fiqh. Thus, in contrast to the Sharia, Fiqh is not regarded as sacred, and the schools of thought (Arabic: madh'hab) have differing views on its details, without viewing other conclusions as sacrilegious.

This wider concep of Islamic Jurisprudence is the source of a range of laws in different topics that govern the lives of the Muslims in all facets of everyday life.

[edit] Muslim Jurist: Ulema

Main article: Ulema

The Muslim Jurist are called the Ulema, from the Arabic ilm (knowledge). They are also called the faqeeh (pl. fuqahaa) from Fiqh.

[edit] Methodology : Usul al-fiqh

Main article: Usul al-fiqh

The Modus operandi of the Muslim Jurist is Usul al-fiqh.

[edit] Fields of jurisprudence

• Islamic economical jurisprudence فقه المعاملات
• Islamic political jurisprudence
• Islamic marital jurisprudence
• Islamic criminal jurisprudence فقه العقوبات
• Islamic etiquettical jurisprudence الآداب
• Islamic theological jurisprudence
• Islamic hygienical jurisprudence
• Islamic military jurisprudence فقه الجهاد

[edit] Methodologies of jurisprudence Usul al-fiqh (أصول الفقه)

There are different approaches to the methodology used in Fiqh to derive Shariah from the Islamic sources. The main methodologies are:

• The four classical Sunni schools are, in chronological order: the Hanafi school, the Maliki school, the Shafi'i school and the Hanbali school. They represent the generally accepted Sunni authority for Islamic jurisprudence.

Other schools are the Thahiri, Sufian Al'thawree, Sufian bin O'yayna, Layth bin Sa'ad. The four most famous schools mentioned go back to the schools as Sufian Bin Oyayna.^{[citation needed]}

• Jafari fiqh, or the Shi'a fiqh
• Qur'an alone fiqh

For some sub-articles about methodologies of jurisprudence, see:

• Shariah
• Qiyas
• Ijtihad
• al-urf
• Taqlid

[edit] The four schools of Sunni Islam

The four schools of Sunni Islam are each named by students of the classical jurist who taught them. The Sunni schools (and where they are commonly found) are

• Hanafi (Turkey, the Balkans, Central Asia, Indian subcontinent, China)
• Maliki (North Africa, West Africa and several of the Persian Gulf Arab States)
• Shafi'i (Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, East Africa, Yemen and southern parts of India)
• Hanbali (Arabia).

These four schools share most of their rulings, but differ on the particular hadiths they accept as authentic and the weight they give to analogy or reason (qiyas) in deciding difficulties.

The Hanafi school was the earliest established under the jurist Imam Abu Hanifa, who was born and taught in Iraq. Imam Abu Hanifa (80A.H. - 150A.H.), whose real name was Nu'man ibn Thabit, was born in the city of Kufa (modern day Iraq) in the year 80 A.H (689 A.D). Born into a family of tradesmen, the Imam's family were of Persian origin. Under Imam Abu Hanifa, the witr prayer was considered to be compulsory and the Hanafis also differed with other sects in relation to methods of taking ablution, prayers and payment of tithe or zakat. Imam Abu Hanifa also differed with the other three schools in many areas including the type of punishments meted out for various crimes in Islam. On the whole, the Hanafi school of jurisprudence could be said to have the most differences with other three schools.

Students of Imam Malik established the Maliki school of which a majority now can be found in North Africa and some Persian gulf states . Imam Malik, whose real name was Abu Abdullah, Malik bin Anas, was born in Medina in the year 715 AD. His ancestral home was in Yemen, but his grandfather settled in Medina after embracing Islam. He received his education in Medina, which was the most important seat of Islamic learning, and where the immediate descendants of the Muhammad's followers lived. Imam Malik was attracted to the study of law, and devoted himself to the study of Fiqh. His principal book, the Kitab al-Muwatta, is one of the earliest surviving book on Hadith and Fiqh. Differences under the Maliki school included the fact that those following the Maliki school could state their purpose (or niat) once only for compulsory fasting which is valid for the whole month of Ramadhan whilst for the Syafi'ie school (see below), one would have to state his purpose every day of the month of Ramadhan for his fast to be valid the next day.

[edit] Salafi

These are the people who claim to follow the way of the Salaf of Islam. The Salafis are of the opinion that blindly following a single mujtahid imam (taqlid) is not correct, especially if it, in their view, contradicts the sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. For more information, refer the main article on salafism.

[edit] Ja'fari jurisprudence

The Jaferi school (Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrein, Pakistan, and parts of Afghanistan) is associated with Shia Islam. The fatwas, or time and space bound rulings of early jurists, are taken rather more seriously in this school, due to the more hierarchical structure of Shia Islam, which is ruled by the imams. But they are also more flexible, in that every jurist has considerable power to alter a decision according to his opinion.

Each school reflects a unique al-urf or culture, that the classical jurists themselves lived in, when rulings were made. Some suggest that the discipline of isnad which developed to validate hadith made it relatively easy to record and validate also the rulings of jurists, making them far easier to imitate (taqlid) than to challenge in new contexts. The effect is, the schools have been more or less frozen for centuries, and reflect a culture that simply no longer exists.

Early shariah had a much more flexible character, and many modern Muslim scholars believe that it should be renewed, and that the classical jurists should lose special status. This would require formulating a new fiqh suitable for the modern world, e.g. as proposed by advocates of the Islamization of knowledge, and would deal with the modern context. This modernization is opposed by most conservative ulema.

[edit] Qur'an alone

A relatively new sect, instigated by Rashid Khalifa, whose life was called for by a fatwa (edict) from scholars all over the Islamic world, and who met his fate unexpectedly in his hometown. He claimed that following the Qur'an only was how God wanted the religion of Islam, and that any other ideology, including advice from the Prophet, was to be rejected. This group is considered by the majority of the Muslims to be outside of mainstream Islam. However, because they have negated the second major source of Islamic law - the hadith literature - they have been forced to formulate a new jurisprudence to cover areas where they no longer have rulings to follow.

[edit] See also

• Bahar-e-Shariat
• Hadith
• Mizan - a comprehensive treatise on the contents of Islam written by Javed Ahmed Ghamidi

[edit] External links

• The importance of Fiqh (jurisprudence) & its study
• The Development of Fiqh
• Islamic Fiqh (Law) and the Neglected Empirical Foundation by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
• Islamic Law and the Use and Abuse of Hadith by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
• Fiqh in the light of the Quran and Sunnah
• Books/Resources on Islamic Law
• A Concise Definition of Fiqh
• Hadeeth Encyclopedia
• L. Ali Khan, Islam as Intellectual Property
• L. Ali Khan, The Second Era of Ijtihad