Methodology of Legal Quranic Commentary

Ibn al-Arabi's approach in Ahkam al-Quran is distinctive within the genre of legal tafsir. Unlike al-Jassas's Ahkam al-Quran (a Hanafi legal tafsir) or al-Qurtubi's Al-Jami li-Ahkam al-Quran (which ranges more broadly), Ibn al-Arabi combines Maliki legal analysis with a sharp critical evaluation of the transmitted reports that bear on each legal question.

His methodology begins with the Quranic text: he identifies the precise legal content of each relevant verse through linguistic analysis, establishing what the apparent sense (zahir) of the text commands or prohibits. He then examines whether the apparent sense is the operative ruling or whether additional textual evidence — from the Quran itself or from the Sunnah — specifies, qualifies, or restricts the apparent sense.

Ibn al-Arabi is notable for his critical engagement with the hadith literature. His legal reasoning does not simply cite hadith as support for pre-determined positions; he evaluates the strength of hadith that bear on legal questions and sometimes rejects narrations that he considers unreliable, even when they might support Maliki positions. This willingness to evaluate hadith critically, rather than simply marshaling narrations as support, reflects his training under Baghdad hadith scholars.

In his discussions of legal differences between the schools, Ibn al-Arabi typically presents the Maliki position as the most supported by the evidence, but his comparative framework is genuinely engaged rather than dismissive. He often acknowledges the logical force of Shafi'i or Hanafi arguments before explaining why he considers the Maliki reasoning stronger.

His treatment of the Quranic foundation of Islamic family law — marriage, divorce, maintenance, custody, and inheritance — is among the most systematic in the Maliki legal literature and has been used as a reference by later Maliki scholars who sought to ground their positions explicitly in Quranic authority rather than relying solely on the transmitted positions of early Maliki jurists.