Fiqh: Encyclopedia - Fiqh

Fiqh

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Islamic jurisprudence, (Arabic: Fiqh) (in Arabic and Persian: فقه) is made up of the rulings (Fatwa) of Muslim Islamic jurists (Ulema) to direct the lives of the Muslims. It is one of the fields of study in Islamic studies.

Fiqh - Etymology

Fiqh is a Islamic term that means "deeply rooted in knowledge", from the Quran 3:7 and 4:162.

Fiqh - Fields of jurisprudence

• Islamic economical jurisprudence
• Islamic political jurisprudence
• Islamic marritial jurisprudence
• Islamic criminal jurisprudence
• Islamic etiquettical jurisprudence
• Islamic theological jurisprudence
• Islamic war jurisprudence

Fiqh - Methodologies of jurisprudence

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

• The four classical sunni schools which are, in chronological order : the Hanafi school, the Maliki school, the Syafi'e school and the Hanbali school, which represent the generally accepted Sunni authority for Islamic jurisprudence.
• Salafi, who do not recognize any of the four as a single authority.
• Jafari fiqh, or the Shi'a fiqh
• Quran alone fiqh

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

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

Fiqh - The four schools

The four schools of Sunni Islam are each named by students of the classical jurist or uelamaks who taught them. The Sunni schools (and where they are commonly found) are the Shafi'i (Indonesia and Malaysia), Hanafi (Turkey, the Balkans, Central Asia, Indian subcontinent, Egypt, China), Maliki (North Africa, West Africa and several of the Arab Gulf states), and Hanbali (Arabia).

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

In chronological order, 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 as well as descending from the noble Prophets (saw) companion Salman al Farsi (ra). Imam Abu Hanifah's father Thabit had met in Kufa, Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib (ra) who made dua for him and his progeny, and some say that Abu Hanifah was a result of this dua. Being distant from the source of Islamic literatures based in Mecca and Madina, Imam Abu Hanifa was more apt at interpreting Islamic legal rules based on thought and reason if he was not able to get access to sources. 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 fiqh 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 compared with the other three schools.

Students of Imam Malik established the Maliki school of which a majority now can be found in North Africa and some Arabian 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 Companions of the Holy Prophet lived. Imam Malik was highly attracted to the study of law, and devoted his entire interest to the study of Fiqh. His principle book, the Kital al-Muwatta is the earliest surviving book on Quran and hadith. 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.

It must be said that although the four schools differed on various aspects of Islamic jurisprudence due to their varying interpretation of the Quran and Hadiths, the four schools as a whole remained united in terms of Islam as a whole.

Fiqh - Ja'fari jurisprudence

The Jaferi school (Iran, Iraq, and parts of Afghanistan) is more 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 isnah 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.

Fiqh - Salafi

Fiqh - Quran alone

See also

• Hadith

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Fiqh", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki