ABSTRACT
The primary legal sources in the classical Sunni view of Islamic law are the Qurʾan and the Prophet Muhammad’s Sunnah/Hadith. All other sources of Islamic law derive their legitimacy in this theory from these two sources. As legal sources, however, the Qurʾan and the Sunnah/Hadith present various forms of challenge to legal scholars. This chapter presents a general historical overview of these two sources of Islamic law in addition to some of the challenges that they pose to jurists, both as independent and complementary textual sources. The chapter begins with a brief introduction on the definition, authenticity, status and authority of these two sources both in the classical Sunni view and in some modern studies, followed by a discussion of specific case studies that illustrate their nature as legal sources. The argument put forward in this chapter is that the notion that Islamic law is based on what its textual sources ‘say’ is untenable. Muslim jurists, as will be demonstrated, knew that an essential aspect of what they were doing was to flesh or work out the meaning of these texts. This they did on the basis of many factors pertaining, not only to language, but also to cultural, social and moral norms and values.
