Islamic Jurisprudence: Sources, Schools, and Rulings

Identify the four primary sources of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence in order of authority.

1. Quran, 2. Sunnah (prophetic tradition), 3. Ijma (scholarly consensus), 4. Qiyas (analogical reasoning).

Name the scholar who died in Cairo in 820 CE and systematically defined the relationship between these four legal sources in his work 'al-Risala'.

Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i.

Explain how scholars used qiyas (analogy) to extend the Quranic prohibition on grape wine to other substances.

Scholars identified the underlying cause (illah) of the original prohibition as intoxication; because other substances cause intoxication, the same ban applied by analogy.

Why did the Maliki school in 8th-century Medina place special emphasis on the living customs of its local community?

Malik ibn Anas viewed the collective practice of Medina's population as unbroken living tradition passed directly down from the Prophet Muhammad and his immediate companions.

Contrast the Hanafi and Shafi'i interpretations of Quran 4:43 regarding whether physical contact with the opposite sex invalidates ritual ablution (wudu).

The Shafi'i school interpreted 'touch' literally as any direct skin contact, whereas the Hanafi school used supporting hadith to interpret 'touch' as sexual intimacy, meaning normal contact leaves wudu intact.

Document analysis: A 10th-century jurist writes, 'Where the texts are silent, human reason must build a bridge, but the bridge must rest on pillars embedded in revelation.' Explain how this statement reflects the function of qiyas.

The statement shows that while qiyas requires human reasoning, it cannot invent arbitrary rules; it must be firmly rooted in an explicit ruling and rationale found in the Quran or Sunnah.