The five great qawāʿid

Beneath the particular rulings, the fuqahāʾ organised the law around a handful of universal maxims, al-qawāʿid al-fiqhiyya al-kubrā. This page maps each of the five great maxims to the family of diagnostic codes that descends from it.

A mapping, not a derivation

This is a documented correspondence for the reader and the ratifying scholar. It is not an inference engine. The compiler enforces the specific invariants listed here. It does not derive new rulings from the maxims. Reasoning from a maxim to a ruling is ijtihād, the scholar’s work and never the machine’s. Citations from al-Suyūṭī and Ibn Nujaym (al-Ashbāh wa-l-Naẓāʾir); all [scholar-verify]. Allāhu aʿlam.

The five surfaced, interestingly, as the Turath knowledge-graph’s own “god-nodes,” the maxims the classical corpus most densely organises itself around.

1. al-umūr bi-maqāṣidihā: “matters are by their intentions”

The substance-over-form principle. It maps to the maqāṣid / ḥiyal-risk layer (MAQASID-1/2): the engine polices form and surfaces where the maqṣad, a possible ḥiyal, must be judged by a scholar. That is the one place it warns rather than rules, precisely because intention is not syntactic. It maps too to the Composition cycle detector (INAH-1/2/3): ʿīnah and organised tawarruq are forbidden by the shape of the ring, the intent, not by the markup.

2. al-yaqīn lā yuzāl bi-l-shakk: “certainty is not removed by doubt”

Determinacy against gharar. It maps to GHARAR-1/2 and ORACLE-1..5 (the consensus oracle, where a majhūl price reverts), together with the definite-price and known-object requirements of the sales: MUR-1, SALAM-1/2/3, ISTISNA-1/3, SARF-1/2, JUALA-1, and the common-law CERTAINTY-*. The contract’s terms must be known, not doubtful.

3. al-mashaqqa tajlib al-taysīr: “hardship brings ease”

The licence of relief. It maps to the Contingency off-ramps (CONT-1, waḍʿ al-jawāʾiḥ, where rent abates under calamity and never accrues as interest; CONT-2/3, farāʾiḍ on death) and the rescission family (khiyār al-sharṭ, iqāla, faskh). The law bends to relieve genuine hardship without breaking the riba line.

4. al-ḍarar yuzāl: “harm is removed”

Liability, and the blocking of means (sadd al-dharāʾiʿ). It maps to the risk-bearing invariants (RISK-1/2/3, where loss follows capital or ownership and the owner bears the asset; al-kharāj bi-l-ḍamān), the no-penalty-riba rules (RIBA-3), the Capacity layer (ahliyya, barring the incompetent from harm), and the cycle detector as sadd al-dharāʾiʿ operationalised. Harm to a partner, a debtor, the incapable, is designed out.

5. al-ʿāda muḥakkama: “custom is arbitral”

Ratified practice governs. It maps to the pluggable rule modules. AAOIFI, DSN-MUI, and the four madhāhib each encode a community’s ratified ʿurf and ijtihād, and the same engine yields a different verdict per authority (the live khilāf). What “the custom” is belongs to the authority to declare. The engine only applies the declared module.

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The boundary, restated. The maxims are the why; the diagnostic codes are what the engine checks. The engine does not reason from maxim to ruling. It applies a human-authored, citation-bearing rule-base, and (in the first maxim’s spirit) it surfaces the question of intent it cannot itself settle. wa-Allāhu aʿlam.