The Classification of Branches Under Branches in the Maliki School: The Classification of Ibn al-Qasim in Al-Mudawwana as a Model

Abstract

The idea for this research took shape in our minds while we were teaching the course on fiqh classification to graduate students at the master’s level. Among the various categories of fiqh classification is the classification of sub-branches under sub-branches, and we wondered whether Maliki scholars used this type of classification in their works? We resolved to investigate and began researching the original Maliki texts (the Mudawwana) transmitted to us by the most renowned student of Imam Malik—may Allah have mercy on him—namely Ibn al-Qasim. The significance of this topic lies in its demonstration of the ijtihad of the school’s jurists and scholars in classifying branches from branches and that they did not neglect it in their works. It also encourages students of knowledge to develop their jurisprudential skills by researching the issues that have been derived and those from which they have been derived, and whether the scholars of the school were pioneers in deriving branches from branches, before this science and art became a branch of jurisprudential derivation. Among the most important conclusions we have reached are as follows: Deriving sub-branches from sub-branches is a form of analogy, and the Maliki scholars were the first to use this type of derivation; the Mudawwana and Ibn al-Qasim’s derivations therein are the best evidence of this. Ibn al-Qasim—may Allah have mercy on him—frequently classified branches under branches, and he used various phrases in this classification.