78 MOHAMMAD HASHIM KAMALI

of Joseph Schacht and three other articles,¹ the present writer has not seen any substantive coverage of legal maxims in the English language. Unlike the existing works in English that tend to be historical, the present essay focuses on a juridical coverage of legal maxims, and traces salient developments of its allied genres of literature. No one has, to the best of the present writer's knowledge, placed the legal theories of Islamic law (naẓariyyāt) and the fiqh encyclopedias in context with the legal maxims. There is also a certain ambiguity and convergence in some of the existing works between qawāʿid and the goals and objectives (maqāṣid) of Sharīʿa, both in the Arabic and English works, which call for clarification. This has also been attempted in our discussion below.

Legal maxims as a distinctive area of fiqh studies has gained considerable recognition, in recent decades, in the legal studies programmes of Islamic universities and institutions of higher learning. Many traditional Arabic texts on the subject have been published for the first time, and a number of modern works added, for basically two reasons. One is the somewhat excessive attention to detail in the fiqh texts and difficulty of access due to poor classification, and the refreshing contrast one finds in the synoptic summaries of legal principles in the qawāʿid, especially for purposes of teaching. The other reason is that, unlike the wider fiqh literature that bears the vestiges of the imitative tradition of taqlīd, legal maxims are not hampered by that factor as much. Taqlīd finds its foothold mainly in concretised detail, but, since legal maxims consist mainly of abstract ideas, they are not particularly affected by the legacy of taqlīd, and can thus be more readily utilised as aids in the renewal of fiqh and contemporary ijtihād (independent reasoning).

The renewed interest in legal maxims is also informed by a parallel revival of interest, among teachers and researchers of Sharīʿa, in the maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa, goals and objectives of Islamic law. Since legal maxims bear close affinity to the maqāṣid, they tend to provide an efficient entry into the understanding of the maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa.