The of Extent of Making Jurisprudential Use of the Quran as Viewed in the Traditions of the Two Major Sects

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Abstract

One of the sources of derivation of Islamic laws is the Holy Quran. According to scholars of jurisprudence and exegetes of Ayat al-Ahkam or the Qur'anic verses that pertain to legal rulings, the verses have been categorized into two parts one dealing with the legal rulings and another unrelated to this area. The verses of the Qur'an that have a legal content are called Ayat al-Ahkam, i.e. the verses that form the basis of legal rules on a specific subject. The verses that are unrelated to legal rules deal with other religious doctrines such as the origin of existence, resurrection, the stories of prophets, the previous nations etc. This article aims to prove the inefficiency of this type of categorization of verses. Describing and analyzing some of traditions of the two major sects (i.e. the Shiite and Sunni schools of jurisprudence) which signify the possibility of deriving legal rulings from the second category of verses, the foregoing categorization can be changed to some extent. Perhaps, with inspiration from the Ahlulbayt's method, it can be said that legal rulings can be deduced even from those verses which are apparently unrelated to legal rulings. Breaking up some of those verses into parts and generalizing them to other cases increase their capacity to be used as a rule in various jurisprudential areas.

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