Among the obligatory branches of fiqh:

It must be pointed out here that the types of fiqh required of the Muslim community are not confined to the school-bound fiqh they normally study, nor to the form of “fiqh” that a few young preachers have recently begun to champion. The branches of fiqh that Muslims are duty-bound to undertake—at least as a communal obligation—are broader and more comprehensive than all of that. They include, for example: fiqh al-kitāb (sound juristic understanding of the Qur’an); fiqh al-sunnah (juristic understanding of the Prophetic Sunnah); fiqh al-lughah (deep mastery of the Arabic language); fiqh al-sunan al-kawniyyah (awareness of Allah’s universal laws in creation); fiqh al-khilāf (the jurisprudence of legitimate disagreement); and other comparable disciplines.

Taken together, these fields of fiqh are no less important than the two forms mentioned earlier—whether the well-known classical fiqh or fiqh al-wāqiʿ (the grasp of present-day realities) that we are now clarifying.

Yet despite all this, we hardly find anyone drawing attention to these disciplines or even hinting at them—especially fiqh of the Book and the Sunnah, which is the crown and cornerstone of them all. Were someone to claim that mastering it is an individual obligation, he would not be far off the mark, given the Muslims’ immense need for it and their utter dependence upon it. Nevertheless, we do not hear anyone persistently emphasising it, laying down its methodology, engaging the youth with it, and nurturing them upon it.