Al Mustasfa Min Ilm Al Usul - Imam Ghazali

Al-mustasfa min ilm al-usul. (On legal theory of Muslim jurisprudence) is Imam ghazali’s work on the subject of us ul al fiqh. It is considered as one of the four great works in the subject. The other three being 1. The mu`tazalite `abd al-jabar (br>D 415) al-qadis al-`umad; 2. Abu al-husain (br>D 473) al-basris al-mu`tamad(commentary on al-`umad); 3. Al-imam al-harmian Abu al-ma`ali (br>D 478) juywanis al-burhan ghazali’s approach to us ul al-fiqh as articulated in this last and greatest work of law Mustafa is based on the premise that in essence this Science is knowledge of how to extract ahkam (rules) from the shari’ah sources. (As for the science of fiqh it concerns itself particularly with the shari’ah rules themselves which have been established in order to qualify the acts of the locus of obligation man.) accordingly ghazali views it as imperative that any discourse on us ul focus on three essential elements: the ahkam; the adilla (sources); and the means by which rules are extracted from these sources which ultimately includes examination of the qualifications of the extractor namely the mujtahid.