Introduction

Professor Mohammad Hashim Kamali was born in Afghanistan in 1944 and pursued advanced legal studies that combined training in both Islamic and Western jurisprudence, earning doctorates in comparative law and later teaching at the International Islamic University Malaysia for many years before becoming founding chairman of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies in Kuala Lumpur. His career has been devoted to making the classical Islamic legal sciences accessible and credible within the contemporary academic world, writing with a command of both the Arabic source tradition and the categories of modern legal philosophy. Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence was first published in 1991 and has since gone through multiple revised editions, establishing itself as the standard English-language academic introduction to uṣūl al-fiqh for university courses worldwide.

The book covers the full range of topics that constitute classical uṣūl al-fiqh: the Quran as a source of law, its interpretation and the rules governing its application; the Sunnah, its authority, categories, and the methodology for establishing the authenticity of hadith; ijmāʿ (scholarly consensus) and its binding force; qiyās (analogical reasoning) and its conditions; and the supplementary evidential sources debated among the schools, including istiṣlāḥ, istiḥsān, and sadd al-dharāʿiʿ. The final sections address ijtihād, taqlīd, and the theory of Islamic legal interpretation. Throughout, Kamali draws directly on the major classical works of uṣūl, quoting and analyzing the arguments of scholars from al-Shāfiʿī and al-Ghazālī to Ibn Ḥazm and Ibn Taymiyya, while also engaging contemporary discussions in a manner accessible to readers trained in secular law or political theory.

The book's scholarly reception has been strongly positive across the English-speaking world of Islamic studies. It is assigned in courses at universities in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Arab world, and has been praised by scholars for its precision, its command of the primary sources, and its success in presenting a technically demanding discipline in lucid prose. Some traditionally trained scholars have noted that certain formulations reflect the influence of modern legal theory more than the classical idiom, and readers should be aware that Kamali at times introduces comparative perspectives that go beyond what classical uṣūlīs would have considered. Nevertheless, the core exposition of the classical doctrine is reliable and has served generations of students as their primary gateway to this essential discipline.

Students using this book in a formal academic setting will benefit most by reading it alongside translations of classical uṣūl texts such as al-Shāfiʿī's al-Risāla or al-Ghazālī's al-Mustaṣfā, so that Kamali's exposition can be compared against the primary sources he discusses. Independent readers approaching uṣūl al-fiqh for the first time will find the opening chapters on the Quran and Sunnah the most immediately rewarding, providing a foundation before the more technical discussions of legal reasoning. Throughout, the reader should bear in mind that uṣūl al-fiqh is not merely an academic exercise but the methodology by which qualified scholars derive rulings from divine revelation, a discipline whose mastery underpins the credibility of Islamic legal scholarship in every era.