The Standing of the Particulars of Fiqh as Legal Proofs

Question

In the books of fiqh four legal proofs (adilla shar‘iyya) are stated: (1) the Book of Allah; (2) the Sunna of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; (3) the consensus (ijma‘) of the Umma; (4) the qiyas of a mujtahid. Now what needs to be ascertained is this: the standing of which legal proof do the practical rulings of fiqh possess — should these rulings be given Qur’anic rank, or placed at the rank of Prophetic hadith, or called matters of ijma‘, or regarded as matters of qiyas?

Answer

Just as the legal proofs do not have a single standing, so too the rulings established by them do not have a single standing. Moreover, there is also great variance in the ways of establishment (turuq al-thubut).

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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