الذوق الشرعي
al-Dhawq al-Sharʿī
Topic
The informed, intuitive and critical sense by which a judge reaches verdicts that fulfil, or come closest to fulfilling, the purposes of the Shariah.
What it means
Dhawq means taste, and al-dhawq al-sharʿī is the trained sensibility of a jurist or judge. Through long familiarity with the texts of the Quran and the Sunnah and with the purposes of the Shariah, such a person senses which verdict serves those purposes most completely, or comes nearest to doing so. The faculty is intuitive and also informed and critical, because it rests on knowledge. Discussions of the objectives of the Shariah (maqāṣid) rely on it where the texts leave room for judgment.
Often misunderstood as
It is mistaken for personal whim, whereas it is a disciplined sense formed by knowledge of the texts and the purposes of the law.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 54, listed as AL DHAWQ AL SHAR'Ī. The definition is restated here.