After the period of Islamic law formation, when identifiable law schools began to form, jurists began to recognize legal patterns in the substantive legal decisions of their respective schools. The importance of these legal models lay in the fact that they allowed jurists, through a process known as takhrīj, to extend the legal position of their school on an issue to an unprecedented case, as long as it corresponded to a case already decided by that school of law.10 These new analogous cases, which were similar to the cases previously decided, were called naẓāʾir. It is not surprising, therefore, that later works devoted to compiling legal maxims often included the word naẓāʾir in their titles. Customs can also be used as a basis for rejecting an application because it is unfounded. Ibn al-Qayyim, in his work on judicial proceedings, states that any legal claim based on a factual assertion contrary to custom must be rejected and not heard by the judge – unless the plaintiff has at least some evidence to support the factual assertion.90 Ibn al-Qayyim illustrates the example of someone who owns a house and is seen: for a greater number of years, to use and enjoy the house as an owner. If another person has seen this for a long period of time and decides years later to sue claiming that the apartment belongs to them, the judge may dismiss the claim as unfounded.91 This is because it is not common for someone who has a claim to a property to observe this condition and remain silent for so many years. before lodging an appeal. In the Qawaāʿid genre, the five universal legal maxims (or normative legal maxims) are most important not only for the whole of fiqh, but also for entire aspects of life in terms of coverage and application, because of their completeness and relevance. Moreover, they are acceptable to all scholars, regardless of the different schools of Islamic law. They represent Sharia as a whole and, in particular, embody the general concept of maṣlaḥa.

The five most important Qawaʿids are (1) “Questions are judged according to their objectives (intentions)”, (2) “Certainty cannot be supplanted by doubt”, (3) “Harshness begets lightness”, (4) “Damage must be repaired” and (5) “Custom is decisive”. Some scholars argue that the totality of fiqh is based on these five and that the rest is a way of explaining them. However, the collection of court decisions by which a Muslim lives includes decisions involving the effort of human actors – that is, qualified jurists (fuqahāʾ) – to establish God`s law. It is this human element that can open the door to doubts about the reliability and authority of the judicial decisions that form the corpus of Islamic substantive law known as fiqh. This doubt can manifest itself in various forms. One of its forms is a vision of Islamic law, which presents it as the product of the arbitrary whims of jurists who arbitrarily make decisions based primarily on convenience and expediency. In other words, Islamic law is portrayed as standing on thin rational ground that lacks coherence and coherence. Some have portrayed the Muslim judge as someone who “makes arbitrary, irrational and timely decisions without respect for the general principles of law”1 and regards justice in Islamic courts as “fixed rules of a formally rational law.” 2 There are many other examples that could have been listed. However, they are reserved for maxims that lie below this branch of this basic maxim. Hopefully, the above maxims have given an idea of the role this maxim plays in seeking appropriate decisions in scenarios that are not explicitly addressed by the Qur`an or Sunnah.

We practice respecting the teachings of master lawyers, and we do not have the power to introduce a new rule because we are unable to make an independent interpretation of the law. Should we then give legal advice in accordance with what is written in the books containing the traditional views of the master jurists?102 The effect of this maxim is of utmost importance, as it makes it possible to make decisions on a legal question that is not directly determined by the Qur`an or the Sunnah. In such cases, the Qur`an and Sunnah reinforce the custom of being a source of legal decisions. Since custom is empowered in scenarios where there is no clear rule in the Qur`an and Sunnah, it goes without saying that custom cannot be used to contradict a rule of the Qur`an or Sunnah. The apparent contradiction can indeed be reconciled. The maxims used in the manner mentioned above may have been of the “indispensable” type. A maxim that is an explicit prophetic ḥadīth or rule of logic can certainly be safely applied to legal matters. Second, the principles on which jurists relied were perhaps more akin to a ḍābiṭ dealing with a particular area of law than to a qāʿida applied in many areas of law.