Barāʾa, an important principle in various schools of jurisprudence, and one of the four ‘procedural principles’ (al-uṣūl al-ʿamaliyya) in later Shiʿi fiqh. It denotes the release or exemption from legal obligation (taklīf); and the removal of a punishment of a mukallaf (a person ‘obligated’ by the law, on account of being fully capacitated) in cases where the latter either commits an action which is probably forbidden, or else omits to perform an action whic…