Custom as a Legal Principle of Legislation for Shi’i Law

This paper will argue that the principle of a lacuna in Shi’i law can empower jurists to go beyond the traditional parameters of the shari’a. The principle allows for an expansion of Islamic law since jurists can legislate laws that have not been explicitly prohibited by textual sources. I will demonstrate that, in the past, Shi’i jurists often appealed to local customary practices in legislating laws that were absent in revelatory sources. …