Hukm

Hukm is the Sharia's address concerning the acts of accountable people, placing each act on a fixed scale.

What it means for me: This is why a question to a mufti is often phrased as 'what is the hukm of this?'. The obligation ruling ranks an act as obligatory, recommended, permitted, disliked, or forbidden. The situational ruling names why an act counts: a cause, a condition, or a preventer. It also marks the act itself valid or invalid.

Example: A reader asks about the hukm of a specific food additive. The answer names one grade on the five-part scale and explains why.

Do not confuse with: Fatwa, a mufti's opinion on a case, and a court's judgment. A fatwa applies a hukm without binding anyone to follow it. A judge's decision, called qada, does bind the parties in a dispute. Plain personal opinion, unlike either, claims no grounding in Sharia's sources at all.

If scholars differ: Usul scholars differ on how many grades the obligation ruling holds. Most count five, from obligatory to forbidden. The Hanafi school separates Fard from Wajib by the strength of their evidence, producing six grades instead. The mufti applies whichever scale fits the school in question.