Hasan, Ahmad. The Early Development of Islamic Jurisprudence. Islamabad: Islamic Research Centre, 1970, 232pp.

ABSTRACT

The Early Development of Islamic Jurisprudence

This book by Ahmad Hasan describes the evolution of the science of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).

Chapter one describes how fiqh, as the exercise of one’s intelligence and personal thinking, was narrowed down to signify jurisprudence as Islamic teachings became codified, and how the contemporary concepts of ‘ilm (knowledge), sharia (God’s path for humankind) and din (basic beliefs) went through a similar transformation.

The next two chapters provide a background of the four schools of thought (Maliki, Shafa‘i, Hanbali and Hanafi) and the sources of information (the Qur’an, sunna, hadith, ijtihad (independent interpretation) and ‘ijma’ (the unanimous agreement of the jurists of the community of a particular age on a certain issue) in fiqh. In chapter four, the author discusses the role that various theories on naskh, the replacement of previous Qur’anic ayat (verses) by new ayat, played in the development of fiqh.

In chapter five, Hasan refers to the works of the jurists al-Awza‘i, Malik, Abu Yusuf and
al-Shaybani to highlight how sunna, which originally meant “social practice”, came to signify the Prophet Mohammad’s conduct in fiqh. Hasan highlights how bid’a (innovation) and fitnah (general corruption) created difficulties in categorising true and false hadith and how certain ijtihad and ‘ijma helped jurists in these situations.

In chapters six and seven, Hasan returns to the discussion of the sources of information in fiqh that he began in chapter three. He discusses the evolution of ijtihad in relation to the changing conceptualisations of ra‘y (personal opinion), Qiyas (analogical reasoning), and ‘ijma with reference to regional specifications. The final chapter elaborates on the role of the al-Shafa‘i school as a turning point in developing concepts such as ra‘y, Qiyas, ‘Ijma’ and Istihsan (arbitrary opinion) into separate fields of inquiry in fiqh.

The book presents a holistic discussion of the development of fiqh. However, the complete picture is obscured, as it is unclear how the sources of information developed individually. Nevertheless, the book carries an extensive bibliography and is a rich resource for both new and advanced students of Islamic jurisprudence.

Sanaa Riaz

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