Preface

I. Apart from the fact that the existing works on Islamic Jurisprudence in the English language do not offer an exclusive treatment of usul al-fiqh, there is also a need to pay greater attention to the source materials, namely the Qur'an and sunnah, in the study of this science. In the English works, the doctrines of usul al-fiqh  are often discussed in relative isolation from the authorities in which they are founded. Furthermore, these works tend to exhibit a certain difference of style and perspective when they are compared to the Arabic works on the subject. The usul al-fiqh as a whole and all of the various other branches of the Shari’ah bear testimony to the recognition, as the most authoritative influence and source, of divine revelation (wahy) over and above that of rationality and man-made legislation. This aspect of Islamic law is generally acknowledged, and yet the relevance of wahy to the detailed formulations of Islamic law is not highlighted in the English works in the same way as one would expect to find in the works of Arabic origin. I have therefore made an attempt to convey not only the contents of usul al-fiqh as I found them in Arabic sources but also the tone and spirit of the source materials which I have consulted. I have given frequent illustrations from the Qur’an, the Sunnah and the well-recognised works of authority to substantiate the theoretical exposition of ideas and doctrines. The works of the madhahib,

in other words, are treated in conjunction with the authority in which they

are founded.

II. The idea to write this book occurred to me in early 1980 when I was teaching this subject to postgraduate students at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal. But it was only after 1985 when I started a teaching post at the International Islamic University, Selangor,

Malaysia, that I was able to write the work I had intended. I was prompted to this decision primarily by the shortage of English textbooks on Islamic jurisprudence for students who seek to acquire an intermediate to advanced level of proficiency in this subject. Works that are currently available in English on Islamic law and jurisprudence are on the whole generic in that they tend to treat a whole range of topics both on usul al-fiqh and the various branches of fiqh (i.e. furu 'al-fiqh ), often within the...