 |
| Image from: amazon.com |
Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence by M.H Kamali.
PREFACE
The idea to write this book occurred to me in early 1980 when I was teaching this subject to postgraduate students at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal.
But it was only after 1985 when I started a teaching post at the International Islamic University, Selangor, Malaysia, that I was able to write the work I had intended.
I was prompted to this decision primarily by the shortage of English textbooks on Islamic jurisprudence for students who seek to acquire an intermediate to advanced level of proficiency in this subject.
Works that are currently available in English on Islamic law and jurisprudence are on the whole generic in that they tend to treat a whole range of topics both on usul al-fiqh and the various branches of fiqh (i.e. furu 'al-fiqh), often within the scope of a single volume.
The information that such works contain on usul al-fiqh is on the whole insufficient for purposes of pursuing a full course of study on this subject.
The only exception to note here, perhaps, is the area of personal law, that is, the law of marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc., which has been treated exclusively, and there are a number of English texts currently available on the subject.
Works of Arabic origin on usul al-fiqh are, on the whole, exclusive in the treatment of this discipline.
There is a selection of textbooks in Arabic, both classical and modern, at present available on this subject, ranging from the fairly concise to the more elaborate and advanced.
Works such as 'Abd alWahhab Khallaf's 'Ilm Usul al-Fiqh, Abu Zahrah's Usul al-Fiqh, Muhammad al-Khudari's Usul al-Fiqh, and Badran's Usul al-Fiqh al-lslami are but some of the well-known modern works in the field.
Classical works on usul al-fiqh, of which there are many, are, broadly speaking, all fairly elaborate, sometimes running into several volumes.
I have relied, in addition to the foregoing, on al-Ghazali's Al Mustasfa min 'llm al-usul, al-Amidi's Al-Ihkam fi Usul al-Ahkam, al-Shatibi's Al-Muwafaqat fi Usul al-Ahkam and al-Shawkani's Irshad al-Fuhul fi Tahqiq al-Haqq min 'llm al-Usul.
These are all devoted, almost exclusively, to the juridical subject matter of usul al-fiqh, and rarely, if ever, address the historical development of this discipline beyond such introductory and incidental references as the context may require. Arabic writers tend to treat the historical development of jurisprudence separately from the usul al-fiqh itself.
There are several Arabic works of modern origin currently available on the history of jurisprudence and its various phases of development, namely the Prophetic period, the era of the Companions, the early schools of law in the Hijaz and Iraq, the emergence of the madhahib, the era of imitation (taqlid), and the call for a return to ijtihad.
This discipline is generally known as 'Tarikh altashri' which, as the title suggests, is primarily concerned with the history of juristic thought and institutions.
[Note for example al-Khudari's, Tarikh al-Tashri' al-Islami; al-Sabuni et al., Al- Madkhal al-Fiqhi wa Tarikh al-Tashri al-Islami; al-Qattan's Al-Tashri' wa al-Fiqh fi al-Islam: Tarikhan wa Manhajan, and al-Nabhan's Al-Madkhal li al-Tashri' al-islami. Nish'atuh, Adwaruh al-Tarikhiyyah, Mustaqbalub.
For full publication data see my Bibliography.] The Arabic texts on usul al-fiqh itself are on the whole devoted to a treatment of the sources, and methodology of the law, and tend to leave out its history of development.
Download Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence by M.H Kamali for free.