مَبْنَى عِلْمِ الشَّرَائِعِ وَالْأَحْكَامِ ... هُوَ عِلْمُ التَّوْحِيدِ وَالصِّفَاتِ
The study of religious rulings is grounded in the principles of divine unity and attributes.
Creed treats basic beliefs and their evidence; fiqh explains practical rulings; uṣūl al-fiqh examines methods for deriving those rulings. The disciplines address different questions while remaining related.
Example 1: “Divine revelation is authoritative” is a foundational theological and methodological question.
Example 2: “The noon prayer has four obligatory units” is a practical legal ruling.
Example 3: “How is a ruling extracted from a legal expression?” is a matter of legal methodology.
This arrangement does not require repeating an entire theological proof before each legal decision; it means recognizing the premises on which a systematic body of religious knowledge rests.