Faqīh
expert in Islamic jurisprudence
A faqih (Arabic: فقيه, pl. فقهاء; faqīh, pl. fuqahāʔ) is an Islamic jurist, an expert in fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic law.
Definition
Islamic jurisprudence or fiqh is the human understanding of Sharia, which is believed by Muslims to represent divine law as revealed in the Quran and sunnah (the practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad). Sharia is expanded and developed by interpretation (ijtihad) of the Quran and sunnah by Islamic jurists (ulama) and implemented by the rulings (fatwas) of jurists on questions presented to them.
Fiqh deals with the observance of rituals, morals and social legislation in Islam. In the modern era there are four prominent schools (madhhab) of fiqh within Sunni practice and two (or three) within Shia practice.
The historian Ibn Khaldun describes fiqh as "knowledge of the rules of God which concern the actions of persons who own themselves bound to obey the law respecting what is required (wajib), sinful (haram), recommended (mandub), disapproved (makruh) or neutral (mubah)". This definition is consistent amongst the jurists.
Methods of derivation
Methods of derivation are laid out in the books of usul al-fiqh (principles of fiqh), and the types of evidence which are deemed valid for deriving rulings from are many in number.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Faqīh” is expert in Islamic jurisprudence. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Faqīh, expert and Islamic, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “expert in Islamic jurisprudence” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1999841. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Faqīh” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.