Theoretical Foundations of Islamic Humanitarian Law: Applicability of Fiqh Principles to Armed Conflict in the North East Nigeria Context

Islamic humanitarian law, deriving from the Fiqh rules of Jihad, the treaty obligations of the Islamic state, and the protection obligations toward non-combatants, constitutes a distinctive normative tradition for regulating armed conflict whose relationship with International Humanitarian Law as applied to the Boko Haram conflict in North East Nigeria requires original theoretical development. This study develops the theoretical foundations of Islamic humanitarian law and applies them to the armed conflict context of North East Nigeria. A theoretical and comparative methodology is applied. The theoretical phase constructs the Islamic humanitarian law framework from classical sources on Jihad regulation (Ibn Rushd, Ibn Qudama, Al-Shaybani), the Hadith on warfare ethics, and the Siyar (international law) tradition, developing an original typology of Islamic humanitarian law norms covering combatant status, protected persons, prohibited methods of warfare, prisoner treatment, and occupation obligations. The comparative phase systematically evaluates the compatibility and tensions between the Islamic humanitarian law framework and the four Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, identifying the Maqasid-based grounds for Islamic endorsement of core IHL protections. The applied phase analyses forty documented incidents from the North East Nigeria conflict from 2014 to 2022 against both Islamic humanitarian law and IHL standards, assessing the normative adequacy of each framework for North East accountability. The original contribution is a Theory of Convergent Islamic-International Humanitarian Law applicable to asymmetric conflicts in Muslim-majority contexts. Keywords: Islamic humanitarian law, armed conflict, North East Nigeria, International Humanitarian Law, Fiqh.