The second category comprises the jurists (fuqahāʾ): those who distilled legal rulings from these proofs, set out their jurisprudential rationale, explained them, and presented them to the people. These are called the scholars of discernment.

Among them are those who combined both disciplines, known as the jurist-traditionists, such as Imām Aḥmad, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and al-Bukhārī.

All of these scholars possess great merit, for the Prophet ﷺ said, “May Allah brighten the face of a person who hears my words, retains them, and conveys them exactly as he heard them.” (1) Thus the Prophet ﷺ prayed for them and praised them.

The scholars fulfilled the duty Allah placed upon them to safeguard the religion and its creed. They clarified legal rulings, laws of inheritance, the lawful and the unlawful, and they elucidated the jurisprudence of the Book and the Sunnah, leaving the ummah a vast treasure from which benefit is drawn and to which one may refer when new problems arise.

Fiqh is divided into two branches:

1. The greater jurisprudence, which deals with creed.
2. The practical jurisprudence, which is no less important than the greater jurisprudence in