The Epistemology of Islamic Legal Methodology (Usul al-Fiqh) and Its Original Contribution to Comparative Legal Theory

Usul al-Fiqh, the science of Islamic legal methodology, constitutes a sophisticated epistemological tradition for deriving legal rules from foundational textual and rational sources that has not been adequately integrated into comparative legal theory despite its theoretical richness and distinctiveness from Western legal methodology traditions. This study develops an original contribution to comparative legal theory by systematically examining the epistemological structure of Usul al-Fiqh and demonstrating its relevance to contemporary jurisprudential debates on legal interpretation, the sources of law, and the relationship between morality and legal obligation. A theoretical and comparative methodology is applied, engaging with the classical Usul works of Al-Shafi'i, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Qudama, and Al-Shatibi alongside contemporary Usul scholarship and Western legal theory from Hart, Dworkin, Alexy, and Habermas. The study systematically compares the Islamic theory of legal sources (Quran, Sunnah, Ijma', Qiyas) with positivist, natural law, and interpretive legal theories, identifying structural analogies and fundamental divergences. A case study applying the comparative theoretical analysis to Nigerian Islamic-constitutional law interface questions grounds the abstract theoretical contribution in a concrete legal context. The original contribution is a Dialogue Framework between Usul al-Fiqh and comparative legal theory that enables productive intellectual exchange without requiring the assimilation of Islamic legal epistemology into Western legal categories. Available comparative legal theory literature from Islamic law identifies the absence of a systematic Usul-comparative theory engagement as the primary gap. Keywords: Usul al-Fiqh, Islamic legal methodology, comparative legal theory, jurisprudence, epistemology.