Key terms · مصطلحات · The words of the book in plain language (the fifteen core words are in Start here)

Key terms (glossary) · Commands, prohibitions and the grades of rulings (B2, B3)
Key terms (glossary) · How words carry meaning (B4 to B7)
Key terms (glossary) · Proofs and reports (B8, B9)
Key terms (glossary) · Explanation, abrogation, the Prophet and the Companions (B10 to B12)
Key terms (glossary) · Qiyās and debating a cause (B13 to B17)
Key terms (glossary) · Rulings, causes and legal capacity (B18, B19)

Key terms (glossary) · Commands, prohibitions and the grades of rulings (B2, B3)

amr (أمر), command: the imperative addressed to an equal or someone lower. → B2.01
fawr / tarākhī (فور / تراخي), at once / later: on the sound Ḥanafī view a command with no set time may be delayed, but not until it is lost. → B2.06
ẓarf / miʿyār (ظرف / معيار), container / measure: time that merely holds an act, as with prayer, versus time the act fills entirely so no other like act fits in it, as with Ramaḍān's fast. → B2.07, B2.08
adāʾ / qaḍāʾ (أداء / قضاء), performance / make-up: doing the very thing owed, versus making it up with a like of it. → B2.10
ḥusn li-ʿaynihi / li-ghayrihi (حسن لعينه / لغيره), good in itself / good for the sake of something else: an act good in its own nature, versus one good only for the sake of something else. → B2.12
nahy (نهي), prohibition: by law it requires refraining from what is forbidden. → B3.01
qubḥ (قبح), badness: three grades: bad in itself, never legitimate; bad for something next to the act, which stays valid; bad for something joined to it as a description, which stays legitimate but makes the performance defective. → B3.02, B3.03
sunna (سنة): the path followed in religion, set by the Prophet and, for the Ḥanafīs, by the Companions after him. → B3.06
nafl (نفل), voluntary act: an addition to the duties, "for us, not against us". → B3.06
ʿazīma / rukhṣa (عزيمة / رخصة), strict rule / concession: the original ruling, versus what is made permissible for people's excuse while the forbidding proof remains. → B3.07

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Key terms (glossary) · How words carry meaning (B4 to B7)

mushtarak / muʾawwal (مشترك / مؤول), equivocal word / interpreted word: a word with several meanings, only one meant at a time; and such a word once reasoning has settled its meaning, which then binds action without certainty. → B4.01, B4.06
nakira (نكرة), indefinite noun: specific in a plain statement; general after a negation, with "the" when no particular one is already known, or with a general description. → B4.05
ẓāhir, naṣṣ, mufassar, muḥkam (ظاهر، نص، مفسر، محكم): four grades of clarity: apparent on hearing; clearer because the passage was spoken for it; so plain that no other reading remains; and firm, open neither to another reading nor to abrogation. → B5.01
khafī, mushkil, mujmal, mutashābih (خفي، مشكل، مجمل، متشابه): four grades of unclarity: hidden by something outside the wording; mixed in with similar cases; known only from the speaker's own explanation; and ambiguous, left to God. → B5.02
ḥaqīqa / majāz (حقيقة / مجاز), literal / figurative: a word in the sense it was coined for, versus a word borrowed for another sense. → B5.03
ṣarīḥ / kināya (صريح / كناية), explicit / allusive: wording that works by itself, versus wording whose intent must be shown, such as a pronoun. → B5.07
ʿibāra (عبارة), wording: what a text was brought to say. → B7.01
ishāra (إشارة), indication: what a text indicates without being brought for it, found by reflecting on its words. → B7.01
dalāla (دلالة), implied meaning: what follows from a text's meaning in language, not from juristic reasoning; so it can establish a punishment. → B7.04
iqtiḍāʾ (اقتضاء), the presupposed: what must be supplied for the wording to make sense or take effect; it has no generality, so it cannot be narrowed. → B7.08, B7.10
mafhūm al-mukhālafa (مفهوم المخالفة): a later name for the claim that naming, a number, a description or a condition denies the ruling elsewhere; Sarakhsī rejects every form of it. → B7.11, B7.12, B7.13
muṭlaq / muqayyad (مطلق / مقيد), unqualified / qualified: each text keeps its own ruling; against al-Shāfiʿī, the unqualified text is not narrowed to fit the qualified one. → B7.15

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Key terms (glossary) · Proofs and reports (B8, B9)

ḥujja (حجة), proof: something one must return to in practice. → B8.01
ʿilm ḍarūrī (علم ضروري), immediate knowledge: knowledge like what one sees; what a mass-transmitted report gives. → B8.04
ijmāʿ (إجماع), consensus: it gives certainty as an honour God gave the community for the religion. → B8.06
ijmāʿ sukūtī (إجماع سكوتي), silent consensus: a later name for what Sarakhsī calls the concession form of consensus: one view spreads and the rest stay silent after it reaches them and time to reflect has passed; the Ḥanafīs count it. → B8.08
ijtihād (اجتهاد), reasoned judgment: it yields strong likelihood, not certainty, against the Muʿtazila's "every mujtahid hits the truth". → B8.09, B4.01
ṭumaʾnīna (طمأنينة), reassurance: reassurance of the heart, short of certainty. → B9a.03
faqīh (فقيه), jurist: here, a Companion known for legal understanding. → B9b.01
ghālib al-raʾy (غالب الرأي), strong likelihood: the grade of knowledge a single report gives: enough to act on, short of certainty. → B9b.02
mastūr (مستور), unexamined: a person whose uprightness has not been examined. → B9b.04, B9d.06
ʿadāla (عدالة), uprightness: one whose religion outweighs his desire. → B9c.01
ḍabṭ (ضبط), accuracy: a narrator's accuracy, from hearing a report to passing it on. → B9c.03
naql bi-l-maʿnā (النقل بالمعنى), relating by meaning: passing on a report in one's own words; allowed for the accurate, though the exact wording is better. → B9c.03
inqiṭāʿ ṣūrī / maʿnawī (انقطاع صورة / معنى), a break in form / in meaning: a visible gap in the chain, the mursal, versus a report cut off by a contrary proof or a defective narrator. → B9d.S1, B9d.01
musnad (مسند): a report with an unbroken chain, as against the mursal. → B9d.S2
ʿumūm al-balwā (عموم البلوى), general need: a matter everyone needs to know to act on. → B9d.04
ṣāḥib al-hawā (صاحب الهوى), heretic: his testimony is accepted, his reports in religion are not relied on. → B9d.08
tadlīs (تدليس): saying "so-and-so said" of someone met but not heard from; blameworthy only when done to fake a higher chain. → B9e.03
jarḥ (جرح), criticism: criticism that disqualifies a narrator; vague criticism does not count. → B9f.03
taʿāruḍ (تعارض), conflict: two equal proofs requiring opposite rulings for the same case at the same time. → B9g.01

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Key terms (glossary) · Explanation, abrogation, the Prophet and the Companions (B10 to B12)

bayān (بيان), explanation: making a meaning plain; it can come by the Prophet's act as well as his word. → B10.01
istithnāʾ (استثناء), exception: it makes the speech about what remains, and counts only when joined to it. → B10.04
ziyāda ʿalā al-naṣṣ (زيادة على النص), addition to a text: where it changes what suffices in God's rights or a right that cannot be split, it is abrogation in effect, so a single report or qiyās cannot make it. → B11.08
sharāʾiʿ man qablanā (شرائع من قبلنا), earlier prophets' laws: binding on us as our Prophet's law when known through the Qurʾān or the Prophet, until abrogated. → B12.05
qawl al-ṣaḥābī (قول الصحابي), a Companion's opinion: his opinion when no other Companion is known to differ. → B12.06

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Key terms (glossary) · Qiyās and debating a cause (B13 to B17)

aṣl / farʿ (أصل / فرع), root / branch: the root case, whose ruling is fixed by a text, and the branch, a like case with no text, to which qiyās extends that ruling. → B13a.01
taʿlīl (تعليل), reasoning from a cause: finding a text's effective cause; allowed only when a proof shows this text has one. → B13c.01
ʿilla lā tataʿaddā (علة لا تتعدى), a cause that does not reach further: one that reaches nothing beyond its own text; the Ḥanafīs do not allow reasoning by it. → B13d.04
ṭard (طرد), mere going-along: a feature that merely occurs together with a ruling; not proof of a cause. → B13e.02
athar / muʾaththir (أثر / مؤثر), effect / effective: the effect a cause is seen to have in the root cases, and a cause shown effective by that effect. → B13e.02
ikhāla (إخالة), suggestiveness: a feature that merely strikes the heart as sound; Sarakhsī calls it conjecture. → B13e.03
takhṣīṣ al-ʿilla (تخصيص العلة), exceptions to a cause: claiming a cause holds where its ruling fails, "blocked by an obstacle"; Sarakhsī holds that a legal cause has no exceptions and calls allowing them a great error. → B13h.01
munāqaḍa (مناقضة), counter-case: a case where the ruling fails though the feature is present; it cannot break a cause whose effect is shown, and is answered by showing the feature was absent there; against a cause that only goes along with its ruling, it works. → B15.01, B17.01
fasād al-waḍʿ (فساد الوضع), wrong construction: a cause built so that it would yield the opposite of what its own nature gives; it cannot break a cause whose effect is shown, but works against a cause that only goes along with its ruling. → B15.01, B17.01
mumānaʿa (ممانعة), denial: asking the reasoner for proof of his cause; the root of objection. → B15.01
qalb / ʿaks (قلب / عكس), reversal / inversion: turning the ruling into the cause; and running a cause and its ruling back the other way. → B15.01
muʿāraḍa (معارضة), counter-cause: setting an opposing cause against the reasoner's. → B15.01
tarjīḥ (ترجيح), preference: preferring one proof by extra strength that is not itself a separate proof. → B16.01
qawl bi-mūjib al-ʿilla (القول بموجب العلة), conceding the cause: granting what the cause proves, while showing it does not reach the point in dispute. → B17.01
intiqāl (انتقال), shifting ground: allowed to prove the first cause or to reach another ruling; a defeat when the first cause could not prove the ruling. → B17.01

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Key terms (glossary) · Rulings, causes and legal capacity (B18, B19)

ḥaqq Allāh / ḥuqūq al-ʿibād (حق الله / حقوق العباد), God's rights / people's rights: worship and penalties, versus what is owed between people; some rulings mix both. → B18.01
khalaf (خلف), substitute: owed by the same cause as the original, but only once that cause has met its object, and taking over only when the original cannot be done. → B18.02
sabab (سبب), cause: in this sense a way to the ruling, like the road to Mecca, not what produces it. → B18.03
sharṭ (شرط), condition: the ruling exists at it, not because of it. → B18.03
ʿalāma (علامة), sign: what makes a ruling known without causing it. → B18.03
dhimma (ذمة): the seat of obligation, what a person is held responsible in. → B19.01
ahliyyat al-wujūb (أهلية الوجوب), capacity for obligation: resting on having a dhimma. → B19.01
ahliyyat al-adāʾ (أهلية الأداء), capacity to perform: limited capacity (a discerning child) makes faith and bodily worship valid; complete capacity (sound-minded adulthood) makes them owed. → B19.03

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