Context & Objective: Methodology plays a critical role in structuring scientific discourse and fostering the dynamic evolution of its foundational issues. Despite the unparalleled utility and influence of jurisprudential maxims (qawāʿid fiqhiyyah, foundational legal principles that govern numerous secondary rulings) within substantive Islamic law (fiqh), the principles of Islamic jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh, the methodology of legal deduction), and the broader realm of law, a definitive framework for the formulation of these maxims has remained conspicuously absent. The primary objective of this research is to establish a methodology for maxim formulation in Imāmī jurisprudence. Consequently, this study seeks to systematically organize existing jurisprudential maxims, delineate them from analogous legal concepts, and propose a standardized model for deriving novel jurisprudential maxims that have not yet been formally recognized within the legal canon.
Method & Approach: This research employs a descriptive-exploratory framework grounded in a doctrinal legal methodology. The investigation is conducted through a comprehensive examination of primary Islamic jurisprudential texts, legal treatises, and historical library documents. By critically analyzing the unwritten paradigms historically utilized by jurists in their compilations of legal maxims, the study synthesizes a structured, theoretical model for the systematic extraction and validation of legal propositions within the Islamic legal tradition.
Findings: The doctrinal analysis reveals that Imāmī jurists implicitly require a jurisprudential proposition to fulfill three distinct criteria to be officially recognized and extracted as a foundational legal maxim. First, the proposition must possess a practical jurisprudential application; it must either affirm or negate a general secondary statutory ruling (ḥukm taklīfī, a directive defining a legal obligation) or a declaratory ruling (ḥukm waḍʿī, a ruling defining a legal situation, condition, or relationship), or it must act as a general proposition with a predicate rooted in substantive law, even if the proposition itself is not a direct ruling. Second, the proposition must demonstrate universality and expansive applicability (iṭṭirād) across all chapters of substantive law, across multiple chapters within various legal compendia, or at least across numerous sections of a single comprehensive volume. Third, the proposition must be substantiated by robust and sufficient jurisprudential evidence derived from primary legal sources.
Conclusion: The articulation of this tripartite methodology provides a rigorous standard for evaluating and filtering propositions currently classified as jurisprudential maxims. By distinguishing genuine legal maxims from theological doctrines, rational principles, or methodological rules that have been historically conflated with them, this framework facilitates a critical refinement of the existing legal corpus. Ultimately, the systematic application of this methodology promotes the independence of jurisprudential maxims from the broader discussions of substantive law and legal methodology, thereby laying the groundwork for establishing the science of jurisprudential maxims as an independent and coherent entity.