Introduction

The term ‘the principles (also the science of the principles, foundations or origins) of Islamic jurisprudence’ has commonly been used as an English equivalent to the Arabic term (uṣūl al-fiqh). Although the word ‘jurisprudence’ appears to be a good extensional translation ¹ to the Arabic term fiqh in that both have to do with the study of law, the intensional imports (and the literal meanings) of the two words are noticeably different. For our purpose here, since we are dealing with the pragmatic thinking of the Muslim legal theorists, we would prefer to use the term fiqh, which literally means ‘understanding’, instead of ‘jurisprudence’, which does not have this meaning.