What is the meaning of Usul al fiqh?

Usul means foundation in order words the foundational concepts of Islamic legal theory. Usul al fiqh seeks to educate you on how a jurist would come to conclusion of deriving rulings in Islamic law by a particular legitimate methodology. In the time of the prophet there was no science of usal al fiqh as the prophet was the perfect and infallible legislator of Islamic legal rulings. The prophet would know the correct understanding of a Islamic concept and ruling without needing technical language because he was the messenger of Allah. This concept likewise extends to the sahabh but to a far lesser degree as they did not need a book of deriving legal rulings because they knew Islam well by living along side of the perfect legislator who gave them many rulings which they remembered and transmitted.

How did fiqh work in the early generations?

After the death of the prophet if someone were to ask the Islamic ruling of a particular scenario it would be up to the sahabah that would tell him the ruling if he had not known. They would ask around those who met the prophet if they had also heard of this ruling proving they did not need a science of deriving rulings rather they simply had to establish the ruling the prophet gave. Usul al fiqh is useful in our times as we need to find rulings in new scenarios which the sahabah did not encounter and would have not needed in their generation. We have the Quran and the Sunnah but it does not address every matter and issue that a human may face so the need of a methodology to derive Islamic rulings for new scenarios was needed thus came the science of Islamic legal theory.

What is the concept of ijtihad?

The prophet was conscious of the fact that the Muslims would not always have him around he foresaw his passing away he communicated to the Ummah that he would leave behind 2 things, The Quran (speech of Allah) and the Hadith (speech of the prophet). From those 2 weighty sources all Islamic rulings must go through as commanded by the prophet. From these principles we get the practice of ijtihad which means to struggles in your own right to derive a legal ruling linguistically means to struggle in any capacity similar to saying try it out but In usul terms ijtihad means using the sources of Islamic law to within your own mind to derive a ruling of a new judgement.

How do we know if our ijtihad is correct?

Ijtihad can be done correctly or incorrectly from the religion we know humans are fallible and make mistakes or perhaps they can fool people by twisting the religion intentionally to change the rulings due to desires. We have the hadith of the prophet which speaks about Ijma “my ummah will not gather together upon misguidance” even if one Muslim willingly or unwillingly was wrong on a new situation that view will never overtake the ummah, someone in the ummah will have the correct ruling and that ruling will eventually come to light and reach the ummah. The prophet said his community will not unite upon misguidance in the history of Islam frequently an incorrect view gains prominence for a short duration of time but would eventually die out in example the mutzailtes who gained prominence and pressured all to follow their misguidance another example the fatamid caliphate upon the Ismaili shiite creed which by sunni standards is more misguided and into kufr the the twelver shiites. The fatimids were one of the strongest military powers in their time who ruled the Ummah eventually they left the ummah likewise false beliefs come each generation but will loose prominence.

Ijma of the Ummah or Ijma of the learned?

Ahlul sunnah will always have the most accurate Islamic rulings, interpretation and legal theory methodology of the entire ummah. The aspects that make up the sunni creed and fiqh will always endure and not be overwhelmed by a harmful consensus of false sects. The book that we will study is called sharh waraqat and it speaks about Ijma in one of its chapters so we wont go into detail but we will briefly mention it in classical terms if 3 Muslims agreed upon a matter it could be considered as Ijma but today there’s billions of Muslims of varying knowledge levels which brings us to the next point which is greater Ijma of the Ummah or Ijma of the learned? There is Ijma and relevant Ijma generally we are not looking for the views of the laymen who are ignorant of religion we want Ijma of the Sahabh and of the Islamic jurist who are a far stronger proof than the Ijma of the ignorant but as I stated earlier we will explain that later in the book, we believe the Uelma can arrive to a ijma on a topic and pass it down over time from the ulema to the laymen.

What is Qiyas?

We have the principle of qiyas which is roughly translated to analogy. Qiyas means arriving to a judgement from a similar previous judgement. If it is said to respect your mother you can logically deduce that respecting your father is equally or greater needed as the essence is obeying your family whom are placed in position of authority over you. This concept is also found is British common law and is not exclusive to the Muslims but rather the Muslims having stronger sources to derive rulings the Speech of Allah and the prophet over the opinions of fallible men.

The opposite of qiyas is qiyas batil wrong qiyas

If you say it is Haram to drink alcohol therefor its haram to drink water as its also a liquid when the essence of the ruling of prohibiting alcohol is forbidding intoxication then this is qiyas batil. A legitimate qiyas would be prohibiting marijuana as it has a similar or equal effect as alcohol does despite it being consumed in a different form. Some jurist liken music to a form of mental intoxication and that is another form of qiyas equating one thing for another due to its overall essence in regards to Islamic law.

The reward of the sincere jurist who makes an incorrect ruling

If a mujtahid reached a wrong Islamic legal ruling that Jurist will receive 1 reward despite being incorrect and if that jurist using usul al fiqh derives the correct ruling similarly they will be be rewarded but with 2 rewards instead of one showing the virtues of the mujtahid even when he is wrong Allah rewards his sincere intention this shows the process is as important as the results. Although we are rewarded despite making mistakes in Ijtihad prefer to get a correct Islamic ruling. Secular legal systems have their process to derive their laws but we prefer our system.

The Usul al fiqh of the disbelievers (Legal theory of the kuffar)

There are large difference between the Islamic and secular legal sustem but for what its worth the kuffaar have found some form of justice in their legal system. In secular legal theory if a man killed someone with a glove that was found bloody clearing showing it was used in the murder but it did not fit the accused he not be convicted of murder because there was to reasonable doubt as in the case of Oj simpson. A part of their usul if they convict the accused and ignored reasonable doubt it would cause the legal system to collapse as other cases would convict accused despite the presence of reasonable doubt,the logic of it is that its better to let a criminal loose that to convict innocent people of a crime that did not commit and its far more likely that the criminal will be convicted. In this logic we see how sticking to the usul is what uphold the legal system whether its from the western secularist or Islam and it has many equivalents, Us supreme court discussion are similar to usul debates in Islam how they approach the Us constitution differ and that influences how they derive legal rulings and prohibitions.

Example of this in the secular legal theory

The 2nd amendment is an example of this concept, its known in the united states firearms are allowed to be owned due to the 2nd amendment which is the supreme source of law of usa stating “The right to bare arms, shall not be infringed” secular jurist debate on if the right to bare arms unrestricted or restricted owning guns from that time period in which it was written such as the musket rifle. Both a musket and rifle have the same basic design that being using gunpower to propel a projectile at high speeds does the automatic nature of modern firearms make it different that the arms the authors of the constitution envisioned despite having the same concept? Some believe the legal essence of the law is to intend to give the civilians the ability to fight a tyrannical government by having a armed population with similar weaponry as the government allowing them to remove unjust rule in favor of just rule.

The Jews have Usul al fiqh

Jews have very similar debates as Muslims in terms of the linguistic meanings of a words and how they understand the source text of the torah and tanakh. Debates are held are the question of do we look at the verses of the torah from a modern lens, is the text fluid or is the text fixed. Muslims will also debate these very same concepts because we seek to understand what Allah means when he says something in the Quran we do not take the view the Quran is a fluid text we cannot read our own meanings into the text and that also applies to the prophets statements! The principles leads to other situations as well.

Where did school of usul break up?

The usul is the system and system and how you derive the ruling different approaches to the sources of the law how we interoperate and that splits the Malikis and the Shafi’is and everyone else. The differences arrived from the 4 founders of the schools who studied from the earlier generation who goes back to the sahabh (zayd ibn thabit and others were interested in law which lead to the later developments of the fiqh schools etc).  Fiqh and usul were not codified in the early Islam he the nabi would not break down the terms and rulings to the Muslims but they would watch and witness for example wudu, the prophet did not break down each terms.

The history of usul al fiqh for the Maliki Madhab

The 4 Imams had separate schools of fiqh Imam malik did not write the Maliki madhab but he wrote the muwattah the way he categorized things and his personal views and his students understood his usul from that.  imam shafi’I was more explicit in the matters of usul in our times we seem him as the father of usul of fiqh but there are arguments that this is from the orientalist that named him that and the Muslims took it and ran with it. A key part of usul of fiqh is knowing the Language, without knowing the meanings of Arabic words you will have difficulty. You need to know the connotations of the word roots so in many ways usul al fiqh is a matter of interpreting language.