ABSTRACT
The Muslim legal theorists did not concern themselves with differentiating between the formal and functional study of meaning, or with the distinction drawn in modern linguistics between semantic and pragmatic explanations. This was probably because their main motive for inquiry was chiefly to set up the general principles of an approach to comprehend the Holy Qur’ān and Sunnah. In other words, the scholars of the PF, as Muslim legal theorists, try, by virtue of their commitment to the commands of the Islamic religion, not only to understand the religious texts as accurately as they could, but also to derive from them the judgements concerning the life of the Muslims in this world and the hereafter.
