The Deductive Method of the Qur’anic Text in Ibn Rushd the Grandson -An Analytical Study of His Book The Distinguished Jurist’s Primer and the Average Jurist’s Guide-

Abstract

This research examines the deductive method applied to the Qur’anic text by Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd the Grandson (d. 595 AH) through an analytical study of his book The Distinguished Jurist’s Primer and the Average Jurist’s Guide, as one of the most prominent works combining comparative jurisprudence, legal-theoretical analysis, and an examination of the causes of jurists’ disagreement. The research proceeds from the premise that Ibn Rushd did not approach the Qur’anic text merely as a text for transmission and citation, but as the starting point for a complex inferential process based on understanding meaning, assembling evidence, examining the causes of disagreement, and then weighing the competing opinions.

The nature of the research required its division into two sections. The first addresses the conceptual and legal-theoretical foundations of Ibn Rushd’s deductive method, while the second focuses on Qur’anic applications of this method in matters of purification, fasting, divorce, and inheritance. Among the principal findings is that Ibn Rushd connects a legal ruling to its evidentiary basis, traces many juristic disagreements to differences concerning principles of legal theory, verbal indications, or the manner of reconciling texts, and employs a method that combines induction, analysis, comparison, causal explanation, and preference.