The supposed sources in al-Ghazālī's islamic legal theory

al-Ghazālī, who has an important place in the science of fiqh methodology, is a personality who has had some influence on almost all the methodology works written after him with the views he put forward. It is important to know the point of view of this great method scholar on the shar'ī evidence, and which evidence he accepted as primary and which evidence as secondary, both in terms of legal theory and in terms of understanding the sources of Islamic rules. It is also important to know why al-Ghazālī rejected some of the evidence accepted by other scholars. The aim of this study is to examine evidence that al-Ghazālī rejected by calling it supposed/false evidence in his famous work, al-Mustaṣfā, and which he did not accept as a true method or source, and to understand his reasons for objecting to them. In order to realize this aim, our work consists of three main parts; In the first part, brief information about al-Ghazālī's scientific and legal personality is given; In the second part, a general framework of al-Ghazālī's view of the original evidence was drawn and the ground was prepared for a better understanding of the last part; In the third/last part, the four evidence, which are our main research subject, which al-Ghazālī named as mawhūm, are examined one by one. These proofs are shar'u men qablenā, legal opinion of companion (qawl al-ṣahābī), istiḥsān (juristic discretion) and istıṣlāḥ (to deem proper/benefit). In the study, some conclusions were reached about al-Ghazālī's understanding of evidence and sources of Islamic rules.