Bearing in mind the fact that it is possible to refer in...

Bearing in mind the fact that it is possible to refer in particular ways to the documents or sources of jurisprudence and to be led to erroneous deductions opposed to the real view of the Islamic Shari'ah, it is necessary for there to be a special field of study that enables one to clearly discern the correct and valid method of using the sources of jurisprudence as a reference to deduce and extract from them the laws of Islam by means of the proofs of reasoning and the proofs provided by God through the Prophet and the Imams.

The Principles of Jurisprudence is the field of study that fulfils this purpose. From the early days of Islam, another word that is more or less synonymous with the word fiqh (jurisprudence) and which has been in common use amongst Muslims is the word ijtihad . In the Muslim world today, especially the Shi'ite world, the words faqih (jurisprudent) and mujtahid are synonymous with each other. The word ijtihad is from the root juhd which means utter striving.

For this reason, a faqih is also called a mujtahid , since he must use all his efforts in deducing Islamic laws ( ahkam ). The Sources of Jurisprudence In the previous lesson we learned how the study of the principles of…