al-Daruri fi Usul al-Fiqh = Mukhtasar al-Mustasfa
- Author died
- 595 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī
al-Daruri fi Usul al-Fiqh (also known as Mukhtasar al-Mustasfa) is a concise treatise on Islamic legal theory (usul al-fiqh) by the Andalusian Maliki jurist and philosopher Ibn Rushd al-Hafid (Averroes, 520–595 AH / 1126–1198 CE), summarizing and critically restructuring Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s celebrated work al-Mustasfa min Ilm al-Usul ("The Quintessence of Legal Theory") .
Purpose and Approach
In the preface, Ibn Rushd states that his aim was to set down, as a mnemonic summary (على جهة التذكرة), an adequate treatment of the essentials (al-amr al-daruri) of the discipline of usul al-fiqh drawn from al-Ghazali's al-Mustasfa, while adhering to maximum brevity and retaining only what is strictly systematic and methodical (sina'i) .
Ibn Rushd prefaced his abridgment with an introductory discussion of the classification and utility of knowledge, dividing sciences into:
- Theoretical disciplines aimed purely at internal assent (such as knowledge of the createdness of the world) .
- Practical disciplines aimed at action, which are either particular (such as specific positive legal rulings) or universal (such as the foundational sources upon which positive rulings are based and the general rules governing legal norms) .
- Instrumental disciplines that provide the cognitive rules (qawanin) and criteria to guide the intellect toward correctness in both theoretical and practical fields .
Unlike al-Ghazali, who opened al-Mustasfa with an extensive formal logic primer, Ibn Rushd deliberately dispensed with that logical prologue in this text, arguing that every discipline should remain in its proper locus and that attempting to study multiple disparate subjects concurrently impedes the mastery of any .
Structure and Content
Following the overarching thematic division of al-Mustasfa, the work is organized into four main parts (ajza'):
- Part One: Legal Rulings (al-Ahkam): Examines the definition of a legal ruling (hukm), theological differences regarding rational versus revealed obligation (including critiques of the Mu'tazila and Ash'ari positions), the categories of rulings (obligation, recommendation, prohibition, disapproval, and permissible neutrality), the conditions and constituents of legal obligations, and situational categories such as cause (sabab), validity, invalidity, strict duty (azima), and dispensation (rukhsa) .
- Part Two: The Sources of Law (al-Usul): Treats the foundational sources from which rulings are extracted: the Quran, the prophetic Sunnah, consensus (Ijma), and the rational presumption of original non-liability (dalil al-aql ala al-nafy al-asli), while noting disputed sources such as the statements of the Companions and pre-Islamic revealed laws .
- Part Three: Methods of Textual Hermeneutics and Derivation (Turuq al-Istinbat): Addresses the linguistic and contextual modes through which normative directives are understood from the Prophet ﷺ, encompassing explicit statements (nass), ambiguous texts (mujmal), apparent meanings (zahir), figurative interpretations (mu'awwal), textual forms, implicit inferences (mafhum), and the Prophet's ﷺ actions and tacit approvals .
- Part Four: Legal Reasoning, Following, and Conflict of Proofs: Devoted to the qualifications of the jurist (mujtahid), the boundaries of legal interpretation (ijtihad), following qualified authority (taqlid), and the principles governing the weighting and preferencing of conflicting legal proofs (tarjih al-adilla) .
Modern Edition
The work was edited and introduced by the scholar Jamal al-Din al-Alawi and published in Beirut by Dar al-Gharb al-Islami in 1994 .
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