Introduction to Fiqh

What is Fiqh? We can translate the word Fiqh into many things. One translation of Fiqh would be to have a deep understanding of something. For example, I study law to I’m going to go into depth to understand everything about law. Another translation would be to learn the Islamic Laws according Qur’an and Sunnah. All these translations are correct but the word Fiqh literally means Jurisprudence. Jurisprudence is the theory or philosophy of law. So now we ask ourselves the question, why do we need to learn Fiqh? Imam Abu Hanifa (rahmatullahi alayhi) describes Fiqh as, “A person’s knowledge of his rights and duties.” This means, whatever rights that we have towards Allah, we are leaning them.

Fiqh has many different topics, just like maths. Maths contains a variety of topics such as algebra, fractions, trigonometry and much more. Similarly Fiqh contains different topics such as Salah, Fasting, Hajj, Jummah and much more. In other words, ‘Ibaadat which means worship; this is the most essential part of Fiqh, learning about worship, Uqubaat which is punishments, Muamlaat which is interactions between human and human, in other words, social relationships and finally Munakhaat which is marriage affairs, this includes the rules of engagement and divorce. So Fiqh covers everything. In many Islamic countries whenever it comes to a court case, the judge makes his decision upon Fiqh.

Who made all these rules? In Islam we have four main imams with four different “school of thoughts”. We know they are authentic as the four imams came shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and all the information was passed down to these four imams who compiled books of their Madhab (School of Thoughts), sort of like a golden chain. The four imams are: - Imam Abu Hanifa (rahmatullahi alayhi), Imam Shafi (rahmatullahi alayhi), Imam Malik (rahmatullahi alayhi) and Imam Ahmed Ibn Hanbal (rahmatullahi alayhi). Despite their difference in opinions, the four Imams had the upmost respect for each other.

And Allah knows best.

Thank you for reading this short introduction to Fiqh. More to come In sha Allah.