The Primary Sources of Shia Jurisprudence

The Primary Sources of Shia Jurisprudence

Inferring the Islamic laws and religious commends from the Quran and the Tradition, throughout history the Muslim jurists used different methods of interpretation. From 1267 (665 AH) onward, among many qualified jurists, the rulers of the Abbasid dynasty decided to execute the opinions of four popular jurists only. Therefore these four ‘Fiqh’ obtained a special place not only at official and public level but in the schools, text books, and among researchers too. Attention was diverted toward these schools only. As a result, other Sunni and Shia schools of jurisprudence were practically not accessible, and some even forgotten. Today, the Shia jurisprudence, despite its thousand years of existence, is unknown to many Muslims and non-Muslims scholars. Most of the world's largest encyclopedia paid less attention toward Shia opinions on different subjects of the Islamic Jurisprudence. This paper attempts to focus on the Shia primary sources, namely the Quran, tradition, reason (Aql) and Ijma. Furthermore it tries to explain briefly different views of the Sunni and Shia in this regard.