Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Farhad Daftary, The Ismailis: Their His-

tory and Doctrines (Cambridge: Cambridge University 

Press, 1990); Farhad Kazemi, “The Fadaiyan-e Islam: 

Fanaticism, Politics, and Terror.” In From Nationalism 

to Revolutionary Islam, edited by Said Amir Arjomand 

(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984); 

Yezid Sayegh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: 

The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 (Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 1997).

fiqh

 

(Arabic: understanding)

Fiqh is a term for Islamic law, particularly as it is 

interpreted and implemented by legal experts from 

among the 

Ulama

. Whereas the 

sharia

 is ideally 

the comprehensive body of law ordained by God, 

fiqh involves Muslims’ commitment to understand 

God’s law and make it relevant to their lives. As 

such, it is a religious form of what is called “juris-

prudence” in the West, and it extends its reach 

from matters of worship to detailed aspects of 

everyday conduct. A member of the ulama who is 

trained in fiqh is called a faqih (jurist).

When the first Arab-Muslim empires arose 

during the eras of the U

mayyad

 c

aliphate

 (661–

750) and the a

bbasid

  c

aliphate

 (750–1258), 

Muslims were compelled to create a legal sys-

tem for the conduct of their own affairs and 

their relations with their non-Muslim subjects. 

Administering new territories from Spain and 

North Africa to northwest India with their 

diverse peoples presented challenges to Muslims 

that Muhammad and the first Muslims had not 

contemplated in seventh-century Mecca and 

Medina. The Umayyads and Abbasids looked to 

the preexisting legal traditions of the Byzantine 

and Persian Empires, Jewish and Christian laws, 

and local custom. Religiously minded Muslim 

jurists used the q

Uran

, community customs, 

and their individual opinions to arrive at legal 

decisions during this early period. Many held 

that Muslim laws should be based as much as 

possible on the Quran and the 

sUnna

 (authentic 

practice) of Muhammad and his Companions 

K  238  

fiqh

---

as recorded in the 

hadith

. By the ninth century, 

Muslim jurists had developed a coherent Islamic 

legal tradition that was held to be applicable 

to matters of worship as well as more worldly 

affairs, especially in towns and cities. Out of 

numerous local legal traditions, four major fiqh

schools (sing. madhhab) came to be recognized as 

authoritative among Sunni Muslims: the h

anaFi

l

egal

  s

chool

, the m

aliki

  l

egal

  s

chool

,  s

haFii

l

egal

  s

chool

, and the h

anbali

  l

egal

  s

chool

.

The Hanafis began in Kufa (Iraq), the Malikis in 

m

edina

, the Shafiis in Fustat (Egypt), and the 

Hanbalis in b

aghdad

. Several Shii legal schools 

also arose, but the principal one is the Jaafari 

Legal School of t

Welve

-i

mam

 s

hiism

.

All of these traditions of fiqh continue to be 

followed today by Muslims, especially in matters 

of worship, personal status, and family law. The 

Hanafi School now prevails among Muslims in 

t

Urkey

,  i

raq

, Central Asia, a

Fghanistan

,  c

hina

, 

p

akistan

, and i

ndia

. The Maliki School is followed 

mainly in North Africa, the s

Udan

, W

est

 and Cen-

tral a

Frica

, and Kuwait. The chief legal school in 

e

gypt

, s

yria

, e

ast

 a

Frica

, South India, Sri Lanka, 

Southeast Asia, and the p

hilippines

 is that of the 

Shafiis. The Hanbali School prevails in s

aUdi

 a

ra

-

bia

 and Qatar, and it has had a significant influ-

ence on many Muslims around the world. The 

Jaafari tradition of fiqh is followed by the Shia of 

i

ran

, southern Iraq, southern l

ebanon

, and parts 

of India and Pakistan.

The different legal schools have come to 

agree that there are four fundamental sources, or 

“roots,” of fiqh. Ranked in order of importance, 

they are the Quran, the sunna, consensus (

ijmaa

), 

and analogical reasoning (qiyas). This ordering 

of the sources for law was developed by the great 

jurist  m

Uhammad

  i

dris

 

al

-s

haFii

 (d. 820). In the 

Quran itself, there are only a few dozen legislative 

commands, found mostly in the Medina chapters 

(for example, Q 2, 3, 4, and 5). Much of the law is 

drawn from the 

hadith

, which contains accounts 

of what Muhammad said and did. The sunna, or 

normative practice, is derived from these accounts. 

Not all hadith were considered to be authentic, 

however. Muslims had to decide which ones were 

valid, based on who had transmitted them and 

whether they conformed to the Quran. During 

the ninth century, hadith regarded as the most 

authentic were arranged by subject and collected 

into books, which made them more available for 

study and consultation by students, scholars, and 

legal experts throughout Muslim lands. The two 

leading hadith collections for Sunnis are those of 

al-Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875).

Al-Shafii and other jurists recognized that the 

Quran and hadith did not address all of the legal 

issues Muslims faced in the widespread Islamicate 

empire, so they accepted laws based on communal 

consensus to supplement those based on revela-

tion. This, the third root of fiqh, was endorsed by a 

hadith ascribed to Muhammad, which stated, “My 

community will never agree on error.” Eventually, 

the consensus was understood to be that of the 

jurists themselves, not of the community at large. 

The fourth root, qiyas, allowed for the limited use 

of personal reasoning by qualified jurists, but it 

was subordinated to 

revelation

, the hadith, and 

communal tradition. Analogical reasoning helped 

jurists make rulings concerning such issues as 

determining the direction of prayer, the minimum 

amount of money a groom owed to his bride’s 

family at marriage, and varieties of food and drink 

not mentioned in the Quran and hadith that were 

forbidden to Muslims. A more inclusive form of 

legal reasoning, known as 

ijtihad

, also played a 

significant role in the development of the Islamic 

legal tradition, although it met with considerable 

resistance from conservative jurists who were 

concerned that too much independent reason-

ing, or personal opinion, would cause Muslims to 

stray from the sharia.

Most areas of life were thought to be governed 

by fiqh, at least in theory. These included worship 

(ritual purity, 

prayer

, 

almsgiving

, 

Fasting

, and the 

haJJ

), social life (marriage, 

divorce

, inheritance, 

and business transactions), and crimes (

adUltery

,

theft, use of alcohol, brigandage, and 

apostasy

).