Comparative Assessment of Evidence and Principles of the Five Jurisprudential Schools concerning the Rule of the More Important and the Less Important

Today, the rule or principle of “the more important and the less important” (al-ahamm wa-l-muhimm) has shown its dominance in all fields. It has been differently appealed to by the five jurisprudential schools due to the principles and evidence they cite for its validity. All the five schools agree on the core idea of the rule and the necessity of choosing what is more important when there is a conflict in acting upon different rulings. However, they have different evidence and sharia principles to support the rule. That is to say, they share some of their evidence, such as the Quran and the Tradition, and differ over other types of evidence such as consensus (ijmā’), reason, analogy (qīyās), personal discretion (istihān), public interests (al-maṣāliḥ al-mursala), and blocking the means (sadd al-dharā’i’). Given the terminological meaning of “the more important and the less important” as it appears in the above evidence and principles, we conclude that the rule should be considered as concerning conflicts among rulings. And as to such conflicts, what establishes the “importance” is consideration of interests and harms, priorities of the rulings, time, and place.