namely this very issue, and the present volume augments it with a host of additional discussions that constitute almost two-thirds of the book, as will be shown in the outline of contents.

2 – The second proof is Ibn al-Qayyim’s statement in Iʿlām al-Muwaqqiʿīn (4/21-22): “…in our large book on Sharīʿah-based horsemanship we dealt with the matter, and in the book Clarifying the Proof for the Invalidity of Stipulating a Muḥallil in Racing and Archery we demonstrated its falsity from more than fifty angles. We also exposed the weakness of the hadith adduced by those who impose that condition, cited the imams’ verdicts on its weakness, and explained that even were it authentic it would still offer no evidence.”

I say: Everything Ibn al-Qayyim mentions here is in full accord with what appears in this very book (1).

3 – His words in the present work, “This is an abridged treatise on Prophetic, Sharīʿah-based horsemanship…,” do not prove that it is a summary of a larger composition. This becomes clear from several considerations:

a) He did not say, “The abridgement of Sharīʿah-based horsemanship,” or “An epitome of Sharīʿah-based horsemanship,” or anything of that sort.

b) Nowhere in this work—even by a single allusion—does he refer to an original from which it was condensed.

c) In this very book he identifies the person who objected to him on this issue, namely