stylistic:tone, structural:scholar_edition
Ja'fari school of law

Law in Islam is an all-embracing body of ordinances that govern worship and ritual in addition to a proper legal system. Building on the work of his father, al-Sadiq is remembered as the eponymous founder of the Ja'fari school of law (al-Madhab al-Ja'fari), followed by the Twelver Shia. According to Lalani, the Isma'ili jurisprudence (fiqh), as codified by al-Qadi al-Numan, is also primarily based on the large corpus of statements left behind by al-Sadiq and his father, al-Baqir. Al-Sadiq denounced the contemporary use of opinion (ray), personal juristic reasoning (ejtehad), and analogical reasoning (qias) as human attempts to impose regularity and predictability onto the laws of God. He argued that God's law is occasional and unpredictable and that Muslims should submit to the inscrutable will of God as revealed by the Imam. He also embraced a devolved system of legal authority: it is ascribed to al-Sadiq that, "It is for us to set out foundational rules and principles (usul), and it is for you to derive the specific legal rulings for actual cases." Similarly, when asked how legal disputes within the community should be solved, al-Sadiq described the state apparatus as evil (tagut) and encouraged the Shia to refer to "those who relate our hadiths" because the Imams have "made such a one a judge (hakam) over you." The Sunni jurisprudence is based on the three pillars of the Quran, the practices of Muhammad (sunna), and consensus (ijma'), whereas the Twelver Shia jurisprudence adds to these pillars a fourth pillar of reasoning (aql) during the occultation of Mahdi. In Shia Islam, sunna also includes the practices of the Shia Imams.