Islamic Law Vocabulary

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naskh

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making a revealed text supersede another.

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adat

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usually unwritten customary laws prevailing in Malaysia and Indonesia.

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Azhar

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a religious university in Egypt that originated as a madrasa and that has incorporated into its twentieth century curriculum many fields in the sciences.

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caliph

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the political and religious head of Islamic government; a deputy of the Prophet, also known as the Commander of the Faithful and Imam.

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ijma'

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generally, the agreement of the community on a particular matter; the third source of Islamic law, technically defined as the agreement of mujtahids in a given age on a particular point of law.

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Council of Guardians

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having the powers of a constitutional court in the Islamic Republic of Iran, it consists of twelve members, six of whom are Shari'a jurists while the rest are experts in other areas of the law; it has the power to veto any bill introduced by the Majlis on the grounds that it is repugnant to Shari'a norms.

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darura

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a legal principle, mainly in the law of rituals, allowing a person to set aside the law in a particular circumstance in fulfilling the legal obligation is believed to lead to undue hardship or harm.

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faqih

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a legist; an expert in the law; an 'alim.

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fatwa

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legal opinion issued by a mufti; although they were formally non-binding, judges adhered to fatwas routinely, as they were deemed authoritative statements on particular points of law.

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hadith

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Prophetic traditions or reports of what the Prophet had said, done or tacitly approved with regard to a particular matter.

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Hanafi

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a legal school; a legist loyal to the principles and substantive law of Hanafism

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Hanbali

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a legal school; a legist loyal to the principles and substantive law of Hanbalism

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ijtihad

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legal methods of interpretation and reasoning by which a mujtahid derives or rationalizes law on the basis of the Quran, the Sunna and/or consensus; also, a judge's evaluation of customary practices as they bear on a case brought before him.

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imam

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leader of Friday prayer; a preacher in a mosque; a caliph in Sunni Islam.

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istihsan

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literally, preference; technically, a method of inference preferred over qiyas and taking as its basis alternative textual evidence on the grounds that this preferred evidence leads to a more reasonable result that does not involved an undue hardship

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istislah

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literally, to find something good or serving a certain lawful interest; technically, a method of inference that does not resort directly to a revealed text as the foundation of reasoning, but rather draws on rational arguments grounded in the five universals of the law, i.e., protections of life, mind, religion, private property and family.

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jihad

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literally, striving to do, or be, good; acting morally in deed and in thought; technically in law, rules regulating conduct of war and peace treaties.

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kuhl'

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martial dissolution in the Shari'a...contractual dissolution whereby the wife usually surrenders her entitlement to dowry plus maintenance she would have received for three months had the husband divorced her unilaterally.

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madrasa

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college of law that is usually part of an endowment; madrasas regularly taught language, hadith and Quranic studies, and often offered study circles in mathematics, astronomy, logic and medicine

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majlis

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the Islamic court of law in session.

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Maliki

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a legal school; a legist loyal to the principles and substantive law of Malikism.

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Marja'-Taqlid

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a relatively recent Twelver-Shi'i concept to the effect that a mujtahid acts as the legal and political leader of the community whilst the Imam is in hiding.

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mazalim

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the ruler's court of grievances that prosecute public officials, including qadis, usually on charges of abuse of power.

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mufti

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jurisconsult; usually a learned jurist who issues fatwas; a jurist capable of one degree of ijtihad or another.

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muhtasib

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marker inspector whose functions ranged from auditing weights and measures in the marketplace to bringing government officials to the Shari'a court for abuse of their powers.

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mujtahid

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a highly learned jurist who is capable of ijtihad, i.e., reasoning about the law through applying complex methods and principles of interpretation.

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mullah

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a Twelver-Shi'i religious intellectual, jurist and/or theologian.

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qadi

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the magistrate or judge of the Shari'a court who also exercised extra-judicial functions, such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and minors, and supervision and auditing of public works.

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qanum

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edicts and decrees legislated by the Ottoman sultans, often asserting provision of Islamic legal doctrine and at times supplementing it on matters related to taxes, land, public order, and court procedure and evidence.

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qiyas

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the fourth source of Islamic law; a general term referring to various methods of legal reasoning, analogy being the most common; other methods subsumed under qiyas are the syllogistic, relational, a fortiori, e contrario and reductio ad absurdum arguments

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'illa

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cause; occasional factor; the attribute or set of attributes common between two cases and which justify the transference, through inference, of a norm from one case (that has the norm) to another (that does not have it).

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recurrence

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a mode of transmitting Prophet hadith.

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Shafi'i

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a legal school; a legist loyal to the principles and substantive law of Shafi'ism.

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Shaykh al-Islam

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before the Ottomans, a leading mufti who, inter alia, supervised legal education in a city; under the Ottomans, the head of the judicial hierarchy, appointing and dismissing judges, opining on points of law, and wielding significant political powers which he at times exercised to depose sultans.

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siyasa shar'iyya

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the ruler's governance according to juristice political theory; discretionary legal powers of the ruler to enforce Shari'a court judgments and to supplement the religious law with administrative regulations; the ruler's extra-judicial powers to prosecute government officials on charges of misconduct

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softa

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an Ottoman term meaning law student

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solitary

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a Prophetic hadith transmitted through fewer channels than recurrent reports.

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study circle

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literally referring to the form in which a group sat down to study with a professor; a study session with a particular specialization (mostly in law), usually held in mosques (but also in private homes).

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Sunna

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the second, but most substantial, source of Islamic law; the exemplary biography of the Prophet.

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takhayyur

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literally, picking, selecting or choosing; a reforming method - prohibited by traditional Shari'a - of selecting opinion from various schools in order to create a modernized body of law.

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talaq

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marital dissolution in the Shari'a...unilateral divorce by the husband whereby he owes his wife financial compensation.

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talfiq

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literally, patching, fabricating, amalgamating or concocting a reforming method of bringing together different parts of a doctrine/opinion from various schools so as to create, on a specific point of law, a modernized doctrine.

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ta'zir

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discretionary punishments; determined and meted out by a qadi, theses punishments cannot reach or exceed hudud penalties

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Twelver-Shi'i

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follower of the infallible Imam, also known as Ja'fari; a theological and political group that believes Imam 'Ali and his descendants to be the legitimate successors to the Prophet; a layperson belonging to the Twelver-Shi'i community, or a jurist who is a member of the Twelver-Shi'i legal school.

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ulama

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referring to the learned class, especially the legists; in this technical sense, the word is of later provenance, probably dating to the twelfth century or thereabouts.

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usual al-fiqh

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a discipline or a field of study specializing in methods of interpretation and reasoning, with the aim of arriving at new legal norms for unprecedented cases or rationalizing existing ones.

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riba

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categorically prohibited in Islamic law; literally meaning "excess," riba refers to receiving or giving a lawful thing having monetary value in excess of that for which the thing was exchanged; interest charged on a debt is a prime example.

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waqf

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a charitable endowment; usually, immovable property alienated and endowed to serve the interest of certain beneficiaries, such as members of the family, the poor, wayfarers, scholars, mystics, the general public, etc.