This book composes and refines numerous ideas I have explored in law review articles and opinion editorials over the past ten years. Since 2000, when I wrote Islam as Intellectual Property, a law review article, my views about Islamic law have taken a clear path that instructs me that divine texts, the Qur'an and the Prophet's Sunnah, must never be confused with opinions of the Prophet's companions and wives, and with the opinions of the founders of Islamic fiqh. I believe that great errors are built upon simple confusions. The doctrine of taqlid is just such a confusion that merged Islamic divine texts with human fiqh. We write this book to reverse the confusion and the consequent error. In doing so, we do not propose to cast away the treasures of fiqh. Fiqh will always remain an integral part of Islamic law. However, fiqh is open to modification and even repeal on a case-by-case basis. We identify contemporary sources of Islamic law, such as constitution, legislation, and case law and propose a simple method, the submission principle, to distinguish between secular law and Islamic law.

On another note, I want to thank Professor Hisham Ramadan for supporting this project. This book would not have been possible without his ceaseless efforts to find a publisher. We eventually and gratefully agreed to publish this book with the Edinburgh University Press. Professor Ramadan read the chapters, proposed changes, and made sure that the divine texts were not misinterpreted.