Islamic jurisprudence, also called Usul al-Fiqh, is the queen of Islamic sciences. It has been developed, refined, and applied for the derivation of the law by some of the greatest Muslim minds, through-out the ages. The discipline of Islamic jurisprudence covers three things:
• The formal structure of Islamic law.
• The sources of Islamic law.
• The analysis of legal concepts.
These meanings may be explained briefly as follows:
1. The Formal Structure of Islamic Law: The formal structure of Islamic law is studied by the Muslim jurists under the title “the hukm shar‘i,” which is translated as “the legal rule of shari‘ah.”
This study of the conceptual structure of Islamic law attempts to answer the following questions:
a. What is the meaning of Islamic law?
b. What is the nature of rules in this legal system?
c. How many kinds of rules are there and how do they unite with each other to give rise to the Islamic legal system?
d. What is legal capacity and how does it interact with the operation of the rules?
e. What kinds of rights underlie the various kinds of rules?
f. How are these rights secured through the legal framework and machinery of Islamic law?

2. The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic law is derived from its sources. The primary sources are those that are unanimously accepted by all the schools and all the jurists as the fundamental sources of Islamic law. In addition to these there are the secondary sources of Islamic law, which are not unanimously accepted by all schools or all the jurists.
3. The Analysis of Legal Concepts: Islamic jurisprudence under-takes the analysis of legal concepts like: legal capacity, rights, persons, liability and so on. It is through these concepts that the rules of law are understood, applied and developed.