The Nature and Characteristics of Governmental Fiqh (Jurisprudence)

Governmental fiqh (jurisprudence) is defined as an approach in deducing rulings for the ideal administration of the government. This term is distinguished from the term 'political fiqh' which is applied as a particular course of study in jurisprudence in matters related to political issues and 'governmental jurisprudence'. The latter is a particular part of political science concerned with the issues such as the institution of 'government'. Concerning the question of government, the effective and ideal administration in line with the Islamic jurisprudential doctrines has been taken into consideration and the Muslim jurist, faqih, too, makes inferences from religious laws in order to provide the authorities with the means to administrate the affairs of the society in the best manner. This jurisprudential approach, as distinct from the individualistic jurisprudential approach, in terms of making jurisprudential inferences, is characterized as having certain characteristics which do not allow for speaking of governmental jurisprudence, though some of which can be applied in individualistic jurisprudence. Among these characteristics, one can refer to such issues as the 'belief in the comprehensiveness or universality of Islamic religion and its capability to meet the governmental requirements", "its scope extending to cover not only individualistic jurisprudence but also the jurisprudential issues concerned with all citizens in a society, all areas of a country, and those which are needed to run the social affairs ideally, "its possibility of making systematic inferences, considerations of the constants and variables in making inferences, the possibility of transforming jurisprudence into laws and regulations, and the possibility of imposing obligation on legal entity", " having an efficient approach to the administration of people's social affairs and making personal judgements on the basis of the requirements in running a society ideally".