Preface to the Critical Edition
All praise belongs to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and ask His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil within ourselves and from our misdeeds. Whomever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whomever He lets stray, none can guide.
I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone without partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger. To proceed:
This is the book “Prophetic Horsemanship” (al-Furūsiyyah al-Muḥammadiyyah) by the eminent scholar Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ayyūb Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. He composed it after being tested by some scholars of his day because he issued legal opinions stating that a muḥallil—a third, non-competing entrant—need not be stipulated in contests of racing and archery. Outwardly he expressed agreement with the majority in order to extinguish and avert strife.
Accordingly, he authored this work, presenting within it the question of requiring a muḥallil in races, marshalling the evidence for both sides in full. He then pointed to those who criticized him for this opinion and for issuing fatwas in its favor, noting that the root of their objection was their reliance on blind imitation. He next detailed the rules of wagering in many matters related to archery and racing, as will be explained below. All of this he wrote to uphold the truth—as he understood it—and to make clear that he had not retracted that view. Allah knows best.
Since Allah has commanded disputation with the disbelievers and the hypocrites and combat against His hostile, belligerent enemies, He, the Exalted, says: “O Prophet, strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh with them; their abode is Hell—an evil destination” (9) [al-Taḥrīm: 9]; and He says: “And dispute with them in the best manner” [al-Naḥl: 125],