Kilis 7 Aralık Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi

Abstract

Islam has a legal system with its practical provisions. Since The Prophet (pbuh), its legal structure has been organised through classification and compilation, especially during the period of mujtahid imāms, and it has continued its development in the following centuries as it found a field of application. The principles, which are also described as the general principles of Islamic law, are based on the Qur'an and the words of The Prophet (pbuh), who expressed a lot of meaning with few words. Before the emergence of the science of fiqh, before it was written down and codified, these principles were in the minds of the mujtahids as basic principles and were taken into consideration in obtaining judgements. In addition to primary evidences, the rulings derived by Islamic jurists through methods of deduction (istinbāṭ) and the principles formulated thereby constitute key aspects that render Islamic law’s universal and continuous nature both comprehensible and applicable. In the following periods, Islamic jurists determined some principles in line with the general rules they obtained from The Book, The Sunnah, the practice of the companions and the judgements of fiqh subjects, and made qawāʿid and ḍawābiṭ a highly regarded discipline in the science of fiqh.
In this direction, from the second century of Hijri, when the science of fiqh began to be classified and edited with subject headings, fiqh principles began to be included in the explanation of the issues, and the principles that reflect the basic principles of fiqh and are important in the solution of legal issues were determined as general principles and applied in zakāt, which is a financial worship, as in every field. One of the important works showing the application of fiqh principles in zakāt is the book of the Hanafī jurist Imām Sarahsī (d. 483/1090) titled al-Mabsūṭ. Sarahsī, who annotated the opinions of the Hanafī madhhab's zahir al-rivāya in his book Mabsūṭ in an analytical and partially comparative way, builds the issues on the principles.
The method of payment of zakāt is directly related to the goods subject to zakāt, the means of payment, the common measures of value and the items that have the characteristics of goods, as well as being closely related to the assignment, which is one of the conditions of the validity of zakāt. In order for the property to be paid as zakāt or its value to be a substitute for zakāt and to relieve the zakāt obligor from his debt, the property in question must be able to be transferred to ownership, that is, it must fulfil the condition of assignment. In this context, whether the property is suitable for assignment or not is one of the main factors to be taken into consideration in terms of both the religious and legal validity of zakāt.
In this study, the principles related to the payment of zakāt will be determined only in the zakāt section of Imām Sarahsī’s Mabsūṭ, and the forms of zakāt payment will be determined. With this determination, it will be tried to prove that the science of fiqh is built on a set of rules and basic principles together with evidence and methods through the payment of zakāt. In doing so, based on the principles identified, the basic principles that are suitable for being ḍābiṭ, even if they are not directly mentioned in the text, will be identified, their jurisprudential meanings will be mentioned, and their place in practice will be emphasised. Fiqhī principles (uṣūl) will be analysed in accordance with the subject flow of the book in general. However, the principles that are complementary or explanatory to each other will be tried to be included one after the other by abandoning the order of the book, thus aiming to ensure the integrity of the subject and contribute to the understanding of the qāidah.
The following conclusions have been reached in this article: In the formation of the science of fiqh, the basic principles and rules of law were included along with the evidence and methods. Sarahsī, who commented on the zahir al-rivāya views of the Hanafī madhhab in his work Mabsūṭ, built the issues on the principles, which are also called the general principles of Fiqh. In the Mabsūṭ, the essentials in the sense of basic principles are also included in the worship of zakāt with property. Principals, also called universal principles, have been effective in understanding the subjects of fiqh. Based on these principles, it has been determined in the Mabsūṭ that zakāt can be paid in three ways: from the property in kind subject to zakāt, from cash or from another property in kind.