Reviewed by Shaykh Musa Furber

I highly recommend this to those interested in the renewal, expansion, and application of fiqh.

The first part gives a summary introduction to legal sources (Quran, sunnah, legal analogy, scholarly consensus, presumption of continuation, blocking & opening the means, juristic preference, etc…); the development and use of maxims; and the various types of rulings (e.g., rulings according to legal theorists, rulings according to legists, and rulings concerning personal responsibility versus contextual factors). The summary of legal sources, maxims, and rulings concentrates on how the three work in concert with the larger corpus of legal rulings to renew rulings for issues where the context has changed, to expand by providing rulings for new issues, and to apply issues to particular cases. The second part then applies the above to the issues of drug trafficking and abortion of pregnancies resulting from rape; in light of existing rulings concerning armed robbery, self-defense, and torts.

The author has written widely on contemporary fiqh issues. One of the strengths of his approach is that it does not see Islam legal heritage as the problem, but rather the solution.