Abstract
This study examines the principles by which Abu al-Walid Ibn Rushd al-Hafid weighs competing linguistic meanings in Bidayat al-Mujtahid wa Nihayat al-Muqtasid and evaluates the consistency of those applications with the principles stated in the introduction to the work and in al-Daruri fi Usul al-Fiqh. The study addresses a gap in previous scholarship, which has generally treated homonymy, particles, argument from silence, literal and figurative usage, and purposive preference as separate topics rather than as parts of a single hierarchy of textual preference. A qualitative textual design was employed by combining inductive, descriptive, analytical, and comparative methods. Ten juristic questions from the chapters on purification, menstruation, and prayer, together with related unqualified and qualified expressions, were selected on the basis of semantic variety, explicit preference or suspension of judgment, and analytical density. The findings show that Ibn Rushd's textual preferences follow a coherent but non-mechanical system. Explicit wording generally outweighs implication, strong general wording is normally preferred while its contextual strength is still assessed, apparent meaning remains operative until a valid indicator diverts it, and literal meaning has initial priority although figurative meaning may prevail when usage and context make it more apparent. Morphological form, Qur'anic and Prophetic usage, legal custom, analogy, context, and the removal of hardship operate as supporting indicators rather than substitutes for textual meaning. The analysis also shows that the relation between unqualified and qualified texts is not applied mechanically and that suspension of judgment is methodologically appropriate when competing indications remain equivalent. On this basis, the study reconstructs an eleven-step Rushdian ladder of textual preference that may be used for teaching applied ijtihad and for contemporary semantic and computational studies of juristic reasoning.