The Quran, Sunnah & sources of Islamic law

The Quran as the primary source

The Quran is the first and supreme source (asl) of Islamic law. It was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) over approximately 23 years (610–632 CE), beginning with Surah Al-Alaq (96:1–5) in the Cave of Hira and concluding with what tradition records as Surah Al-Maidah 5:3 ("This day I have perfected for you your religion"). It comprises 114 surahs. Its compilation passed through two decisive stages: collection into a single mushaf under Caliph Abu Bakr (632–634 CE) on the advice of Umar after the Battle of Yamama (632 CE) killed many huffaz, and standardisation under Caliph Uthman (c. 650 CE), who circulated the authoritative codex and ordered variant copies destroyed.

The Quran is not primarily a legal code: classical jurists count roughly 500 verses bearing legal content (ayat al-ahkam), of which about 80 concern strictly defined rules of conduct. Its provisions range from explicit (qat'i) injunctions — fixed shares of inheritance in Surah An-Nisa (4:11–12), the prohibition of riba in Al-Baqarah (2:275–279), the hadd for theft in Al-Maidah (5:38) — to general principles requiring elaboration, such as the command to establish salah without specifying its rak'ahs.

The Sunnah as the second source

The Sunnah — the Prophet's sayings (qawl), actions (fi'l) and tacit approvals (taqrir) — is the second source, its authority grounded in the Quran itself: "Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it" (Al-Hashr 59:7) and "Obey Allah and obey the Messenger" (An-Nisa 4:59). The Sunnah performs three functions defined by the usul scholars: it confirms (ta'kid) Quranic rulings, explains and details (tafsir/bayan) them — for instance specifying the timings and units of prayer — and establishes independent rulings (tashri') such as the prohibition of marrying a woman and her aunt simultaneously.

Hadith is classified by the chain of transmission (isnad): mutawatir (reported by so many narrators that collusion in falsehood is impossible) versus ahad (transmitted by limited chains), and by reliability into sahih, hasan and da'if. The canonical Sunni compilations are the Kutub al-Sittah, headed by Sahih al-Bukhari (d. 870 CE) and Sahih Muslim (d. 875 CE), followed by the four Sunan of Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nasa'i and Ibn Majah. Imam Malik's Muwatta (8th century) is among the earliest legal-hadith collections. A candidate must distinguish the Quran's wholly preserved, divinely-worded text from Hadith, whose authenticity is established through rigorous narrator-criticism (ilm al-rijal).

Ijma and Qiyas: the agreed secondary sources

Beyond the two primary textual sources, classical usul al-fiqh recognises two further roots accepted by the Sunni majority. Ijma (consensus) is the unanimous agreement of the qualified jurists (mujtahidun) of a given generation on a point of law. Its authority rests on the Prophetic report "My community will not agree upon an error" and on Al-Baqarah's reference to the umma as a "middle nation" (2:143). The paradigmatic instance is the consensus of the Companions on compiling the Quran and on the twenty rak'ahs of Tarawih under Umar. Qiyas (analogical reasoning) extends a textual ruling to a new case sharing the same effective cause (illah) — the classic example being the prohibition of all intoxicants by analogy with the Quranic ban on khamr (wine), the shared illah being intoxication.

Jurists also debated subsidiary sources: istihsan (juristic preference, prominent in the Hanafi school), istislah/maslaha mursala (public interest, emphasised by Malik and later al-Shatibi), urf (custom), istishab (presumption of continuity), and the practice of the people of Medina. The four Sunni schools — Hanafi (Abu Hanifa, d. 767), Maliki (d. 795), Shafi'i (d. 820, author of Al-Risala, the first systematic treatise on usul), and Hanbali (d. 855) — differ chiefly in the weight they assign these secondary tools, not in the supremacy of the Quran and Sunnah.

Why this matters for the exam

In the CSS Islamic Studies compulsory paper this topic is a near-certain scorer. The Federal Public Service Commission has repeatedly set questions on "the sources of Islamic law and their order of priority" and on "the role of Ijtihad in the modern age." Examiners reward a candidate who states the strict hierarchy — Quran, then Sunnah, then Ijma, then Qiyas — and demonstrates it with named verses and dated historical instances rather than vague assertion. The high-yield facts to retain: the two-stage Quranic compilation (Abu Bakr, then Uthman c. 650 CE); the Kutub al-Sittah and the primacy of Bukhari and Muslim; the three functions of the Sunnah; the definition of illah in Qiyas; and Al-Shafi'i's Al-Risala. Link the topic to contemporary debate — the closing of "the gate of ijtihad," the Council of Islamic Ideology under Article 228 of the 1973 Constitution, and the Federal Shariat Court under Article 203 — to lift a competent answer into the top band. A strong essay frames the sources not as static texts but as a living methodology that has accommodated jurisprudence from the 8th century to modern Islamic legislation in Pakistan.