Article

A Study and Edition of Tractate of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Marjānī Named “Mashāri’ al-uśūl wa mashārib al-fuśūl” on Fiqh Methodology

Abstract

This is a study of tractate on the Ĥanafī law school methodology (i.e. uśūl al-fiqh) which belongs to Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-Ĥasan Hārūn b. Bahā al-Dīn al-Marjānī al-Qazānī (1233 A.H./1818 A.D. – 1306 A.H./1889 A.D.), the Islamic thinker and owner of reformative and innovatory ideas, that lived in XIX century in Tatarstan and studied in Bukhara and Samarqand, the cities that are considered as the center of knowledge of that time. Inspite of the briefness, the treatise is including almost all subjects and matters of uśūl science. The author named it Mashāri’ al-uśūl wa mashārib al-fuśūl, which means that al-Marjānī made a metaphor, where he assimilated the main subjects of uśūl to mashāri ’ (i.e. footpath leading to water) and the secondary matters to mashārib (i.e. spring of water). The tractate consists of three main chapters that are containing of some relative sub-subjects. The work could be regarded as one of the shortest treatises on uśūl al-fiqh of the Ĥanafī law school, which contains almost al subjects of uśūl.

Keywords

al-Marjānī Ĥanafī School Methodology Mashāri’ al-Uśūl wa Mashārib al-Fuśūl.