Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-10T14:20:38.512Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 2 - The Foundation of Analogy

‘Establishing the Validity of Qiyās against its Detractors’ from al-Mustaṣfā of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111)

from Part I - Islamic Legal Theory (Uṣūl al-Fiqh) and Related Genres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Ziad Bou Akl
Edited by
Omar Anchassi  and
Robert Gleave
Omar Anchassi
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Robert Gleave
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Get access

Summary

This chapter explores the seminal contribution to Islamic legal theory of al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), focusing on his defence of legal analogy (qiyās) against its detractors in al-Mustaṣfā min ʿIlm al-Uṣūl. Al-Ghazālī discusses the justifications for analogy and bases its authority on revelation, rather than reason alone. He opposes both those who deem it rationally impossible to employ analogy in legal matters (against the Baghdādī Muʿtazila and the Shīʿa) and also those who deem it rationally necessary (such as the Baṣran Muʿtazilīs). His position is thus typically an Ashʿarī one: by showing that it is neither impossible nor necessary to use analogy, reason concludes that it is possible to use analogy. This discussion of a point of legal theory is thus heavily inflected by theological debates.

Keywords

Legal analogy (qiyās)Ijtihād‘Advantage’ (ṣalāḥal-aṣlaḥ)Ratio legis (ʿilla)Presumptive signs (ʿalāmāt).
Type
Chapter
Information
Islamic Law in Context
A Primary Source Reader
 , pp. 20 - 32
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Primary Sources

al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. Asās al-Qiyās, ed. al-Sarḥān, F. (Riyadh: Maktabat al-ʿUbaykān, 1993).Google Scholar
al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. al-Ghazālī’s Moderation in Belief: al-Iqtiṣād fī al-Iʻtiqād, trans. Yaqūb, Aladdin Mahmūd (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. al-Mustaṣfā min ʿIlm al-Uṣūl, ed. al-Ashqar, M. S., 2 vols. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1977).Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Bou Akl, Ziad. ‘From Norm Evaluation to Norm Construction: The Metaethical Origin of al-Ghazālī’s Radical Infallibilism’, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 21 (2021), 141–58.Google Scholar
Brunschvig, Robert. ‘Valeur et fondement du raisonnement juridique par analogie d’après al-Ġazālī’, Studia Islamica 34 (1971), 57–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffel, Frank. al-Ghazālī’s Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallaq, Wael B. A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunnī Uṣūl al-Fiqh (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasan, Ahmad. Analogical Reasoning in Islamic Jurisprudence: A Study of the Juridical Principle of Qiyās (Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, 1986).Google Scholar
Hasan, Ahmad. ‘The Conditions of Legal Cause in Islamic Jurisprudence’, Islamic Studies 20 (1981), 303–42.Google Scholar
Hasan, Ahmad. ‘The Definition of Qiyās in Islamic Jurisprudence’, Islamic Studies 19 (1980), 1–28.Google Scholar
Hasan, Ahmad. ‘Methods of Finding the Cause of a Legal Injunction in Islamic Jurisprudence’, Islamic Studies 25 (1986), 11–44.Google Scholar
Johansen, Baber. ‘Dissent and Uncertainty in the Process of Legal Norm Construction in Muslim Sunnī Law’, in Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought: Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modaressi, ed. Cook, Michael, Haider, Najam, Rabb, Intisar and Sayeed, Asma (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 127–44.Google Scholar
Opwis, Felicitas. Maṣlaḥa and the Purpose of the Law: Islamic Discourse on Legal Change from the 4th/10th to 8th/14th Century (Leiden: Brill, 2010).Google Scholar
Shihadeh, Ayman. ‘Theories of Ethical Values in Kalām: A New Interpretation’, in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Schmidtke, Sabine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 384–407.Google Scholar
Zysow, Aron. The Economy of Certainty: An Introduction to the Typology of Islamic Legal Theory (Atlanta: Lockwood Press, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×