ABSTRACT
Legal dogmatics is one of the several subtypes of any legal ‘system’ and consists of the interpretation of canonical texts and the systematisation of legal norms. It is designed to serve as an aid to the correct understanding of the authoritative sources and legal interpretation. In traditional Islam, the uṣūl al-fiqh, also called uṣūl al-sharʿas a science of source methodology, embodies the study and regulation of the sources of Islamic law, both revealed and auxiliary, by means of ijtihād. Since its beginnings it concerned itself with the establishment of principles and precepts that govern the procedure of ijtihād. Hence, Islamic law involves not only the written or oral tradition of fixed and established legal canon, but a priori certain settled methods to decide what is lawful in all legal and religious matters. 39 The structures of the law, in the form of topics, concepts and rules are, in their turn, set out in the second genre of juristic literature, the furūʿ al-fiqh (applied branches of fiqh), a word that Schacht liberally translates as ‘positive law’ (Schacht 1964:59). As a matter of principle and methodology, uṣūl al-fiqh was never severed from furūʿ, as jurisprudence constantly was reinterpreted in order to address the exigencies arising in the realm of positive law. 40
