In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful

A Concise Guide to the Principles of Legal Rulings

All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May blessings and peace be upon the noblest of messengers—our Prophet Muhammad—together with his family, all his Companions, and those who follow them with excellence until the Day of Judgement.

To proceed:

Whoever undertakes the task of deriving legal rulings directly from their foremost source—the Quran and the Sunnah—or receives those rulings from someone who does so, scrutinises them closely, and selects what he deems nearest to correctness, must be conversant with four foundations:

1 - Hadith terminology.
2 - Usul al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence).
3 - Fiqh maxims.
4 - The higher objectives of the Shariah.

Through the first foundation, he identifies the hadith that may be relied upon and cited as proof. From the second, he understands the evidences for subsidiary rulings concerning the actions of the legally accountable. By means of the third, he gathers scattered issues under comprehensive maxims that regulate their particulars and prevent their dispersion. And with the fourth, he perceives the inner wisdom and purposes of the Law, and how it seeks to secure benefits and avert harms.

For this reason, I have placed before my commentary on Bulugh al-Maram these four introductory studies, so that they may be at hand for the reader, showing him how the rulings were drawn from their roots and the issues distilled from their source, enabling him to recognise the paths of derivation and the ways onward.