Jurisprudential Principles Deduced from the Qur’anic Story of Moses and the Children of Israel in the Slaughtering of the Cow: An Applied Usul Al-Fiqh Study 10.35781/1637-000-139-002

Abstract

This research, entitled “The Jurisprudential Principles Derived from the Story of Moses and the Children of Israel in the Slaughtering of the Cow: An Analytical and Applied Usul Study,” seeks to present a scientific and foundational analysis of a Qur’anic narrative regarded as one of the most prominent stories illustrating the interaction between divine revelation and human responsibility, and what it contains of jurisprudential (usul) principles with legal dimensions. The study is based on the premise that Qur’anic stories are not merely historical narratives but constitute a rich legislative source of jurisprudential principles that help regulate the understanding of revealed texts and guide juristic reasoning in a manner consistent with the objectives of Sharia. The researcher adopted the inductive, analytical, and deductive methodology, by examining the verses of the story, analyzing their indications, extracting jurisprudential principles from them, clarifying their legal effects, and linking them to what jurists of Usul have established in their authoritative works. The research is structured into an introduction, a preface, and three chapters. The preface discusses the fundamental concepts of the study, such as the definition of jurisprudential principles and the method of deriving them from Qur’anic narratives. The first chapter deals with jurisprudential principles derived from the indications of divine command in the story, such as the principle “A command implies obligation,” “A command implies immediacy,” and “No ijtihad (independent reasoning) is permissible in the presence of a clear text”. The second chapter addresses principles related to the reception of divine commands, such as “Consideration is given to the generality of the wording, not the specificity of the cause,” “Blocking the means (to evil),” and “An absolute text remains unrestricted unless a qualifier is established”. The third chapter focuses on jurisprudential principles with practical and applicative dimensions, such as “Considering the consequences (maqasid al-ma’alat) in obligations,” and “Actions are judged by intentions”. The study concludes that Qur’anic narratives constitute a fertile field for deriving jurisprudential principles, and that studying these principles within their Qur’anic context contributes to renewing Usul methodology and bringing it closer to contemporary reality. It also highlights the importance of integrating applied Usul reasoning with direct Qur’anic understanding, and the need to establish this approach in the training of contemporary jurists and muftis. The research recommends systematic attention to the inductive study of Qur’anic stories to extract the Usul principles they contain, and to include such studies in postgraduate programs in Sharia faculties, in order to revive the vitality of Usul al-Fiqh and strengthen its practical connection with divine revelation - the Qur’an and the Sunnah.