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What are the Five Universal Principles (al-Kulliyyat al-Khams) in Islamic jurisprudence, what is their order, and what are their sources from the Qur’an and Sunnah?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The esteemed questioner may be referring to the five necessities, which are the universals that prophets and rational people have agreed to respect: religion, life, intellect, lineage, and property. Some may add "honor" to these. Islamic Sharia has legislated rulings to preserve them, such as the punishment for apostasy to preserve religion, qisas (retribution) to preserve life, the punishment for drinking alcohol to preserve intellect, the punishment for adultery to preserve lineage, the punishment for theft to preserve property, and the punishment for slander to preserve honor. As for their order, it is religion, then life, then intellect, then lineage, followed by property and honor, which come at the same level.

Alternatively, the questioner may be referring to the five jurisprudential maxims to which most branches of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) refer: certainty is not removed by doubt, harm is to be removed, hardship brings ease, custom is authoritative, and matters are judged by their intentions.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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