Islamic legal theory provides the framework for the production of the laws, both spiritual and legal, that govern the lives of Muslims all over the world. For example, a Muslim woman planning a trip to America would have to consider a number of issues such as: 1) is she allowed to travel all by herself, 2) can she perform her prayers on the airplane while seated, or 3) if she finds herself in a restaurant in Louisiana, can she order Cajun Fried Alligator? The answers to all these questions, and a multitude of others, depend on the legal methodology that she follows. But the importance of legal theory goes far beyond that. All scholars’ legal principles are, consciously or unconsciously, built upon a foundation. This foundation is a set of assumptions about the very nature of the sharīʿa itself, and if we go further, each scholar’s assumptions about the nature of the sharīʿa go back to his or her beliefs about God and God’s intention and purpose in creating the sharīʿa. Each group’s beliefs about the nature of God and His attributes – whether they saw God as primarily merciful or not, gentle or harsh, whether He prioritised justice or forgiveness – shaped their view of the purpose of the sharīʿa and its inner workings. Each scholar’s set of legal principles, then, was not simply a way to find out what God and His Messenger were telling us through Revelation: they were also competing visions about the very heart and soul of Islam. The different legal theories that are proposed involve answers to questions such as: is the sharīʿa rigid or flexible? Does it accept diversity or insist on uniformity? How much does it interfere in people’s lives, and how much scope for freedom does it allow? Is it only there as a test of obedience, or does it serve a function? We will look at all of these questions as we explore the different legal theories of the major Sunni imāms and a number of the most important Sufis in Islamic history.

The Sufis and uṣūl al-fiqh

Sufis have a long history of contributing to the science of uṣūl al-fiqh. One need only mention al-Ghazālī whose work al-Mustaṣfā, thought to be the last book he penned before his death, became the basis of most future works in the field.