The fixed and the changeable in Islamic law

'Abbas Shuman relays the scholars' agreed division: rulings that do not change — the prescribed prayers, their numbers and times, zakat, fasting, hajj, the prohibition of murder, adultery, wine and theft — the smaller part of fiqh, called questions of usul; and branch rulings where the law set no certain text, in which fatwa shifts with time, place, circumstance and persons. Some branches rest on probable texts open to more than one reading, and modern cases like cloning and organ transplant were never covered by the texts at all ¹.