The Jurisprudence of Reality (Fiqh Al-Wāqiʿ) in Contemporary Islamic Thought: A Comparative Study of the Discourse of Yūsuf Al-Qaraḍāwī (D. 2022), Nāṣir Al-ʿumar (B.1952), And Abdullah Bin Bayyah (B.1935)

The call for the ijtihād and renewal of Islamic Law in order to make Sharīʿa relevant to modern reality and guarantee an authentic Islamic modernity have been an essential feature of contemporary Islamic thought. The jurisprudence of reality (fiqh al-wāqiʿ) constitutes a prominent Muslim contemporary reform project. Muslim scholars have invoked it to guarantee the responsiveness of Islamic law to modern realities, rehabilitate the bond between textual proofs and contextual reality, and establish a modern form of reality-based jurisprudence. However, despite its importance in the contemporary Islamic scene, the reformist project of fiqh al-wāqiʿ has escaped the attention of scholars in western academia. This dissertation attempts to fill this gap by providing the first critical and contextualized study on the topic in English. It explores the project of fiqh al-wāqiʿ by focusing mainly, but not exclusively, on its articulation in the discourse of Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī (d. 2022), Nāṣir al-ʿUmar (b.1952) and Abdullah Bin Bayyah (b.1935).

These scholars are prominent representatives of three influential and mainstream Islamic trends, namely the Revivalist/Ikhwānī, the Salafī-Ṣaḥwī, and the Neo-traditionalist, respectively. Their discourse on the topic has shaped the way fiqh al-wāqiʿ has been conceptualized and developed in contemporary Islamic reformist discourse. This dissertation traces in a historical and genealogical fashion the various functions and roles that fiqh al-wāqiʿ has fulfilled in their discourse and the Islamic trends they represent. It pays particular attention to the epistemological, legal, and political ramifications of fiqh al-wāqiʿ. It also sheds light on the nature of Islamic reform that their project of fiqh al-wāqiʿ presupposes, the dynamics between texts and context they envisage, and the kind of politics they entail. The comparative aspect offered by this dissertation provides a unique opportunity to grasp the wide range of roles and functions that fiqh al-wāqiʿ has assumed in the broader spectrum of mainstream contemporary Islamic thought.