ABSTRACT
The Arabic word sharia means a path or an approach to a watering place, but in its technical sense it denotes the law laid down by God. The aim of Islamic jurisprudence or fiqh (Arabic ‘understanding’) is to understand God's law. Throughout the Muslim world, up until the nineteenth century, fiqh was the most important academic discipline. It had two principal components: furu al-fiqh, the ‘branches’ of understanding, and usul al-fiqh, the ‘roots’ of understanding. The furu al-fiqh comprised the various laws. They were grouped in topics under two main headings: ibadat, or acts of worship, namely: purity, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage, and muamalat, or interpersonal acts, including family law, mercantile law, criminal law and so on. The usul al-fiqh covered the categories of law (obligatory, recommended, permitted, disliked and forbidden); the sources of law (which varied depending on the school but always included the Quran, the Sunna, and consensus); the rules for extrapolating norms from the sources (rhetorical devices and the use of analogy); and the theory of ijtihad, the exercise of independent judgement. The law was implemented by qadis and muftis. The qadi (Arabic qadi ‘judge’) was usually appointed by the political authority and dealt principally with family law, charitable trusts and civil disputes. The mufti was an expert who could give legal rulings or fatwas.
