page_title: Sharia
section_title: Jurists
hierarchical_section_title: Sharia / Pre-modern Islamic legal system / Jurists
caption_attribution_description: Samarkand, Registan: Ulugbek Medressa
context_page_description: Sharia, Islamic law, or redundantly Sharia law, is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. The manner of its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslim fundamentalists and modernists.
  Traditional theory of Islamic jurisprudence recognizes four sources of Sharia: the Quran, sunnah, qiyas, and ijma. Different legal schools—of which the most prominent are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali and Jafari—developed methodologies for deriving Sharia rulings from scriptural sources using a process known as ijtihad. Traditional jurisprudence distinguishes two principal branches of law, ʿibādāt and muʿāmalāt, which together comprise a wide range of topics. Its rulings are concerned with ethical standards as much as with legal norms, assigning actions to one of five categories: mandatory, recommended, neutral, abhorred, and prohibited.
context_section_description: Sharia was traditionally interpreted by muftis. During the first few centuries of Islam, muftis were private legal specialists who normally also held other jobs. They issued fatwas (legal opinions), generally free of charge, in response to questions from laypersons or requests for consultation coming from judges, which would be stated in general terms. Fatwas were regularly upheld in courts, and when they were not, it was usually because the fatwa was contradicted by a more authoritative legal opinion. The stature of jurists was determined by their scholarly reputation. The majority of classical legal works, written by author-jurists, were based in large part on fatwas of distinguished muftis. These fatwas functioned as a form of legal precedent, unlike court verdicts, which were valid only for the given case. Although independent muftis never disappeared, from the 12th century onward Muslim rulers began to appoint salaried muftis to answer questions from the public. Over the centuries, Sunni muftis were gradually incorporated into state bureaucracies, while Shia jurists in Iran progressively asserted an autonomous authority starting from the early modern era.
  Islamic law was initially taught in study circles that gathered in mosques and private homes. The teacher, assisted by advanced students, provided commentary on concise treatises of law and examined the students' understanding of the text. This tradition continued to be practiced in madrasas, which spread during the 10th and 11th centuries. Madrasas were institutions of higher learning devoted principally to study of law, but also offering other subjects such as theology, medicine, and mathematics. The madrasa complex usually consisted of a mosque, boarding house, and a library. It was maintained by a waqf (charitable endowment), which paid salaries of professors, stipends of students, and defrayed the costs of construction and maintenance. At the end of a course, the professor granted a license (ijaza) certifying a student's competence in its subject matter. Students specializing in law would complete a curriculum consisting of preparatory studies, the doctrines of a particular madhhab, and training in legal disputation, and finally write a dissertation, which earned them a license to teach and issue fatwas.
caption: Ulugh Beg Madrasa, Samarkand (est. 1422)
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