Crystalline Gems of Islamic Jurisprudence Ash-Showkani, Mohammad

By Mohammad bin Ali Ash-Showkani
Translated By A Al-Hassan
Edited By Richard Arnold (Abdullah), Phd
Paperback 229 Pages
Dar Al Furqan Saudi Arabia

This Book addresses nearly every aspect of human experience, from daily rituals and human behaviours, to the most critical of human transactions and major decisions we all face. Issues such as:

• The Book of Purity
• Five Pillars
• Marriage & Divorce
• Sales & Contracts
• Medicine
• Punishments
• Jihad
• and Many more chapters

The Fiqh Is not Based on any Madhad or School of thaught.

He was from the Zaydi school of law originally, and called for a return to the textual sources of the Quran and hadith. He viewed himself as a mujtahid, or authority to whom others in the Muslim community had to defer in details of religious law. Of his work issuing fatwas, ash-Shawkani stated ‘I acquired knowledge without a price and I wanted to give it thus. Part of the fatwa-issuing work of many noted scholars typically is devoted to the giving of ordinary opinions to private questioners. Ash-Shawkani refers both to his major fatwas, which were collected and preserved as a book, and to his “shorter” fatwas, which he said “could never be counted” and which were not recorded.

He is credited with developing a series of syllabi for attaining various ranks of scholarship and used a strict system of legal analysis based on Sunni thought. He insisted that a jurists who wanted to be a mujtahid fī’l-madhhab (a scholar who is qualified to exercise ijtihad within a school of Islamic law), was required to do ijtihad, which stemmed from his opposition to taqlid for a mujtahid.
Despite his Shiite background, he is regarded by many as a  revivalist and  has influenced contemporary Islamic movements in  the Muslim world such as the Ahl-i Hadith  and Salafi Movement . His legal decisions and discussions are frequently used in contemporary debate among Muslim scholars.
Allama Shawkani died in the year 1255 A.H.