This one of the clearest and the most detailed of contemporary books on Islamic sacred law. One can learn from it most aspects and divisions of fiqh, in accordance with the four canonical schools of Sunni Law: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. Essentially, this book is one of the modern attempts at producing a tome that covers, as comprehensively as possible, most of the legal questions that can occur to the Muslim throughout his life, in a form that is most accessible to an increasingly literate general public. This was the explicit intention of the book, when it was commissioned by the late Azhar Rector, Shaykh Mustafa al-Maraghi, in 1922, to act as a reference for imams and mosque scholarly circles in Egypt. Since its first publication in 1928, it received many scholarly additions and revisions and its reprints never stopped to this day.   

Islamic Jurisprudence According to the Four Orthodox Schools is a translation of volume I of al-Fiqh `ala al-Madhahib al-Arba`ah, by the Azhari scholar Sheikh ^cAbd al-Rahman al-Jaziri (1882-1941). Dealing with the forms of worship (`ibadat), this work offers an in-depth discussion of ritual purity (taharah), ritual prayers (salat), including funeral prayers and the practice of visiting the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), fasting (siyam), spiritual retreats (`itikaf), charity (zakât), the pilgrimage to Mecca (both 'al-hajj' and 'al-^cumrah'), and the offering of animal sacrifices.

Unlike previous works on Islamic law, which offer a medieval perspective, Islamic Jurisprudence According to the Four Orthodox Schools is unique in providing the four legal views of `ibadat, according to the interpretations of more recent traditionalists, trained at al-Azhar University. It is a valuable and detailed reference work for those interested in Islam, Islamic law, or comparative law and contains a glossary of Islamic terminology. This is a must for academic libraries as well as for private individuals who want to learn more about the performance of religious duties.  

On the Author

^cAbd al-Raĥmān Ibn Muĥammad ^cAwađ al-Jazīrī was born on the Egyptian island of Shandawīl in 1882 (1299 AH) and was educated at al-Azhar from 1896-1909; he later became a teacher at al-Azhar.  In 1912, al-Jazīrī was appointed inspector for the Ministry of Religious Endowment's Department of Mosques, after which he was promoted to the Ministry's chief inspector.   He was subsequently appointed as a professor in al-Azhar's College of the Principles of Religion, and before his death in Ĥulwān in 1941 (1360 AH), al-Jazīrī became a member of al-Azhar's Committee of Senior Scholars.

Al-Jazīrī's writings include: Al-Fiqh ^cAlā al-Madhāhib al-Arba^cah ("Islamic Jurisprudence According to the Four Orthodox Schools") in four volumes (Volume I was composed jointly by al-Jazīrī and a committee of scholars, while the remaining volumes were composed by al-Jazīrī alone); Tawđīĥ al-^cAqā'id ("Clarification of Doctrines") on the science of monotheism; Al-Akhlāq al-Dīniyah wal-Ĥikam al-Shar^ciyah ("Religious Ethics and the Manifestations of Wisdom in the Islamic Law"); Adillat al-Yaqīn ("Proofs of Certainty") in response to certain Christian evangelists; and Dīwān Khuţab ("Collected Sermons").*

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* The information above was taken from Al-A^clām: Qāmūs Tarājim li-Ashhar al-Rijāl wal-Nisā' min al-^cArab wal-Musta^cribīn wal-Mustashriqīn, by Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, Beirut: Dār al-^cUlūm lil-Malāyīn, Vol. III.

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Translator's Preface

Given the specialized nature of the material contained in the present work, I encountered inevitable translation-related difficulties at times, but as Providence would have it, I was given an invaluable consultant in my husband Amin Odeh, who holds a Ph.D. in Arabic Language and Literature and who took an active interest in the work I was undertaking. He purchased me a veritable library of reference materials, including a variety of dictionaries dealing with terms relating to jurisprudence and the like, as well as placing at my disposal his already-existing collection of references. When I came to passages whose meaning was less than apparent, we would sit down with my questions and he would suggest possible ways of interpreting them. When even then the text remained elusive, he would help me obtain further assistance by presenting our questions to a colleague of his at AL al-Bayt University in Mafraq, Jordan with a specialty in Islamic law. In this connection, I would like to extend special thanks to Dr. Fathallah Akthem Tuffahah of the College of Fiqh and Law, AL al-Bayt University for giving so generously of his time toward a proper understanding of the points in question.

In addition, Amin went to the Jordanian University library and made photocopies of other editions of Al-Fiqh cAlā al-Madhāhib al-Arbacah, and on more than one occasion, it turned out that ambiguities in the text were due to either typographical errors or omission of words or phrases, and which we found to be corrected in one or more of the other editions.

When I encountered terms or phrases that I felt would require additional clarification for Western readers, I also included translator’s notes, either in the form of separate footnotes or, given the fact that 90 percent of the text is already in footnote form, simply between square brackets [ … ] followed by the abbreviation “t.n.” to identify them as my own interpolations.

In addition to the persons already mentioned, I would like to extend my special thanks to Aisha Governeur and Dr. Mary Ann Fadae for affirming their confidence in me by entrusting me with the task of rendering this demanding work into English; to my parents, A.Verne Roberts and Elisabeth Euwer Roberts for the freedom they so generously gave me to pursue what mattered most to me in life; to my siblings, Bob, Jim, Elisabeth and Margaret, for their love, support and encouragement over the years; and to my beautiful, vivacious, bright little girls, Batoul and Salaam, whose arrival in the world gave me the excuse I needed to withdraw sufficiently from other professional commitments to devote myself to the vocation I love most (namely, translation); and last, but not least, to other, unnamed, but precious traveling companions whose steady presence, affection and inspiration has replenished my energy and stamina on occasions too abundant to enumerate.

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All Qur'anic quotations are taken from Muhammad Asad's, The Message of the Qur'an (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1984).


Nancy Roberts
Amman, Jordan
December, 2002

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