The Early Development of Islamic Jurisprudence By Ahmed Hasan. Delhi, India: Adam Publishers, 1994. pp. 234.

Abstract

Professor Ahmed Hasan has made a great contribution to the understanding
of the early history of Islamic jurisprudence up to the time of al Shafi'i (d. 204
A.H.). A few works. such as The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence by
Professor Joseph Schacht, have been published on the early development of
Islamic jurisprudence. and Hasan's work is a valuable addition. Islamic jurisprudence
is a dynamic, ongoing, and virtually limitless subject. The community
cannot survive without it as long as new issues arise to be resolved and
Islamized. Thi field of study helps the community to move forward, encouraging
members to solve new problems that arise in their social lives. Hasan discusses
how jurists debate one another over the extraction of God's law and how.
ultimately, uch debates have developed Islamic jurisprndence and the different
legal schools. ljma' (consensus) and qiyas (analogy) did not exist at the time of
the Prophet; they developed through ijtihtid, based on the principle sources the
Qur'an and Sunnah. The subject has a kind of progressive flow, tide, and dynamic
character. Hasan divide his book into seven chapter, beside an introduction
and a concluding discussion. He also includes a bibliography and an index. The
author chose a period in the history of jurisprudence for which sources for synthesis
are difficult co obcain. He shows the historical development of lslamic
jurisprudence in the first two centuries of Hijrah based mainly on the work of
Malik. Abu Yusuf, al Shaybani and al Shafi'i.
This book is designed for readers who are particularly interested in Islamic
law and history. In the introduction the author describes the meaning of fiqh and
other allied terms. He analyzes the origins of the early schools of law-such as
the schools of Medina and Iraq-that developed through the work of scholars
who extracted God's law from the revealed sources. Further analysis by the
author suggests that after the middle of the second century A.H., scholars were
generally engaged in independent thinking on law. ln the same way. al Shafi'i
developed his own legal theory and brought consistency into law. After him the
regional character of the early schools began to disintegrate and faithfulness to
one master and his principles gradually predominated.
The author discusses the sources of Islamic law beginning with the development
of the main five categories of judgment of Muslims' aces, namely, the
obligatory. the recommended, the neutral, the disapproved, and the prohibited.
These categories are ultimately based on four sources: the Qur'an, the Sunnah,
ijma' and qiyas. The author first deal with the Qur'an, briefly pointing out that
it is the primary source of legislation and guidance. The author discusses the
doctrine of the abrogation of individual verses in the Qur'an (naskh) in a separate
chapter, pointing out the development of the theory of naskh and its significant
role in Islamic jurisprudence. Although naskh is an established doctrine in
the field of Islamic jurisprudence, the author's long analysis of naskh suggests
that since the Qur'an is eternal there can be no reasonable ground for the thesis ...