he seeks marriage. Hence, they discuss marriage after that. Then, once the blessing has been completed through a full stomach, clothing for the body, and the safeguarding of one’s chastity, a person may fall into recklessness and arrogance that require deterrence; so they mention retaliation, the prescribed punishments, and the judiciary, and so on.

They made the chapter on acknowledgements the very last, even though acknowledgements have a place in the chapter on sales—for example, a person’s acknowledgement that he sold, bought, or rented something—in the hope that a person’s final words in this world will be the testimony that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Some scholars made manumission the final chapter, hoping that they might be freed from the Fire. Each approach has its basis.

This, then, is the arrangement adopted by the scholars—may Allah have mercy on them—in the books they compiled. Some of them may place certain matters in a section where others do not. For this reason, some later scholars considered arranging fiqh according to the letters of the alphabet, since no one can err in their order. The arrangement of fiqh chapters among Hanbali jurists, however, may differ from that of Shafi‘i jurists, Hanafi jurists, or others; but people agree on the order of the alphabet. This is a sound approach, and it has been followed by those who compiled fiqh encyclopaedias, beginning with the letter alif.

The author’s statement: “The Book of Sales.” Sales are lawful according to the Quran, the sunnah, scholarly consensus, and sound reasoning.

As for the Quran, Allah the Exalted says:

“Allah has permitted trade and forbidden usury.” [al-Baqarah: 275]

As for the sunnah, there is the Prophet’s statement, peace and blessings be upon him: “When two men enter into a sale, each of them”