Grade XI Lesson 4 ; Rules of Jurisprudence

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

·        Understand the meaning of jurisprudence

·        Infer the importance of Juridicial maxims.

·        Explain the five normative juridicial maxims

I)KEY WORDS

1.     Jurisprudency

2.     Juridicial maxims

3.     Ijtehad – independent reasoning

4.     Qiyas – deductive analogy - comparison

III)ANSWER THE FOLLOWING

11)    Discuss the concept and emergence of Jurisprudence?

Ans) Jurisprudence means the rules and regulations of fiqh according to the Islam law which infer the society and benefit it in positive ways. The concept of Jurisprudence is to concise general legislative rules on matters similar to jurisprudential maxims. The emergence of Jurisprudence can be considered from the Prophet’s era and its rules are deduced from the text of Holy Quran and Suunah. The formats of these rules were gradually established in the ages of the prosperity of Islamic Jurisprudence.

22)    What is the importance of the rules of Jurisprudence?

Ans. The rules of jurisprudence are of great value to a person pursuing knowledge; these rules assist in:

-         Understanding and memorizing many similar jurisprudential matters.

-         Knowledge of the blessings of religion, its noble purposes and the fact that it suits all time and all place related to past, present or future.

-         Constituting a jurisprudential capability, which enables a student to deduce jurisprudential rulings on new facts through qiyas.

3.) Discuss the normative juridicial maxims.

Ans) Rules of Jurisprudence are not of the same degree. There are five famous normative maxims which all fiqh schools of thought have agrred upon relying on them. These maxims include branches of all fiqh sources. The five normative rules of jurisprudence are as follows:

1i.     Acts are judged by the intention behind them.

The words and deeds of man are subject to his intention. His deeds

are acceptable and deserve rewards if his intention is right. They are

unacceptable and constitute guilt of his intention is corrupt.

2ii.      Certanity is not overruled by doubt.

If one has doubts but one is possessed by prior certainty, one will not be

bothered with doubts. Instead he refers to one's prior certainty because

certainty is firm belief whereas doubt is hesitation as to whether something

will occur or not.

3iii.     Harm must be eliminated.

There are circumstances which being out hardship or difficulty to man when applying by Sharia rulings. Hardship is of two types.

·        Customary hardship:

This type of Hadrship is related to worshipping customs such as the hardship of fastening or the hardships of Haj. There are countless examples of it.

·        Uncustomary Hardship:

This is emergent and requires extra efforts such as hardship in travel and sickness.

4iv.     Hardship begets facility.

Sharia forbids harming the self or others by forbidding the occurrence of

harm in the first place or by removing harm when it occurs

5v.     Custom is the basis of judgment.

Words and deeds which people are accustomed to and have normalized

are ascribable to norms and considerable customsif they do not contravene

a Sharia text and have no measure in Sharia or language.

Custom denotes recurring happenings with the majority of people; these

happenings recur until they become acceptable, ie. people do not

object to them or feel that they are exotic. Convention is a mater which

most people are accustomed to and which belongs to words, deeds or

avoidance. If a matter is subject to judgment, this denotes that settlement

and ruling constitute the basis of adjudication between people.