Ahmad Hajj Ali al-Azraq
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Ahmad Hajj Ali al-Azraq is an Islamic legal scholar and academic who served as the chair of the Department of Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) at the College of Sharia at the Islamic University of Madinah. He is known for his jurisprudence treatises and research contributions on Islamic legal rulings regarding intoxicants and public finance.
Academic Career and Legal Thought
Al-Azraq served as head of the Department of Fiqh in the Faculty of Sharia at the Islamic University. In his treatise al-Muskirat wa al-Mukhaddirat wa-Mawqif al-Shariah al-Islamiyyah Minha ("Intoxicants, Narcotics, and the Stance of Islamic Law Regarding Them"), he analyzed the legal prohibition of mind-altering substances through the foundational maxims of Islamic legal theory. He framed his discussion around the principle that things are inherently permissible until proven otherwise, balanced by the overarching objective of Islamic law to secure benefit and avert harm. He emphasized that divine legislation is structured to preserve the essential necessities (daruriyyat) of human society, identifying them as religion, life, intellect, lineage, honor, and wealth. Al-Azraq argued that Islamic law preceded modern civil legal systems in addressing and curbing the societal and bodily damages caused by intoxicants and narcotics.
In the field of Islamic economic and public finance jurisprudence, al-Azraq published the study Nizam al-Dara'ib fi al-Islam ("The Tax System in Islam") in the journal of the Islamic University of Madinah. In this work, he detailed how classical institutions such as zakat and land tax (kharaj) fulfilled core financial and economic standards, such as assessing taxation upon net yields rather than principal capital, precluding double taxation within a single period, and maintaining rigorous standards of justice in the selection of tax officials.
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List of Works
al-Muskirat wa al-Mukhaddirat, also titled al-Muskirat wa al-Mukhaddirat wa-Mawqif al-Shariah al-Islamiyyah Minha ('Intoxicants, Narcotics, and the Stance of Islamic Law Regarding Them'), is a legal treatise. The work examines the Islamic legal prohibition, classifications, harms, and penalties concerning alcohol, narcotics, and other mind-altering substances.