PRINCIPLES TO BE FOLLOWED IN PARTIAL HARMONIZATION BETWEEN ISLAMIC FIQH AND MAN-MADE LAW

Abstract

Nowadays all over the Muslim world, with exceptions, Man-made law, inherited from the civil or common law of the colonial power, such as Britain, France, etc., is widely being used. According to some scholars, present Man-made law of the Muslim world has been also partially influenced by the Islamic fiqh. Therefore, there are sporadic similarities between them. Additionally, many rulings that are found in Man-made law of any Muslim country do not exist in Islamic fiqh books because these rulings are related to the issues, which did not exist in the past. Hence, if an Islamic government were established today, it would not be able to abandon all of them. On the other hand, many contemporary Muslim jurists maintain that all that belongs to Man-made law are considered to be kufr (unbelief), whereas majority of the scholars of Man-made law consider that Islamic fiqh is not suitable for the contemporarylife of Muslims.1 In this situation there should be some bridge between these two opposite views, so that Islamic fiqh would get some benefits from the Man made law and vice versa. The basic objective of this is to suggest some principles for partial harmonization between Islamic fiqh and Man-made law. In order to achieve this objective, the researcher will try to explore principles of Islamic jurisprudence (Uṣūl al-Fiqh) and select some of these principles that suit this partial harmonization process. Likewise, he will investigate the opinions of contemporary Muslim jurists regarding this issue.