Islamic Scientific Schools

In the Name of Allah---the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. Qiyās: Analogical Reasoning Introduction Qiyās—commonly translated as analogical reasoning —is one of the four principal sources of Islamic law after the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and Ijmāʿ (consensus). It signifies the extension of a known ruling from a revealed text to a new case on the basis of a shared effective cause (ʿillah). Qiyās thus bridges the gap between the divine texts and the evolving realities of human life, enabling Islamic law to remain dynamic, adaptable, and relevant across times and cultures. The legitimacy of Qiyās has been affirmed by the overwhelming majority of Sunni jurists—Hanafis, Malikis, Shafiʿis, and Hanbalis—while being rejected or qualified by certain minority schools. This article examines the theoretical foundations, components, methodology, evidence, types, conditions, and debates related to Qiyās. Definition and Concept of Qiyās Technical Definition Jurists define Qiyās as: “Extending a Shariʿ...

In the Name of Allah---the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. Abū-ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn-ʿAbdallāh Ibn-Sīnā  [Avicenna] (ca. 970–1037) was the preeminent philosopher and physician of the Islamic world.  In his work, he combined the disparate strands of philosophical/scientific [ 2 ]  thinking in Greek late antiquity and early Islam into a rationally rigorous and self-consistent    scientific  system that encompassed and explained all reality, including the tenets of revealed religion and its theological and mystical elaborations. In its integral and comprehensive articulation of    science  and philosophy, it represents the culmination of the Hellenic tradition, defunct in Greek after the sixth century, and reborn in Arabic in the 9 th  (Gutas 2004a, 2010). It dominated intellectual life in the Islamic world for centuries to come, and the sundry reactions to it, ranging from acceptance to revision to refutation and to substitution with para...