at the outset, and how lengthy and expansive the book later became, so he produced an abridgment entitled “Safar al-Sa‘āda,” most of it drawn from the present work, though he made no reference to it!

Besides the change in plan, it appears that the book’s various sections were written at different times, and that chapters and passages were subsequently added on separate occasions. All this resulted in considerable repetition and occasional inconsistencies. One example of repetition is the chapter in the second volume (416 - 417) explaining the Prophet’s prohibition (peace and blessings be upon him) on calling grapes karm (grapevine). He then discussed this again in the fourth volume (546 - 547), without referring to the earlier discussion, as though he had forgotten that he had already explained it. On noticing the extent of the repetition, one of the reviewers of our edition suggested including a separate index of recurring issues at the end of the book.

One example of inconsistency is his statement, in discussing the Prophet’s guidance (peace and blessings be upon him) concerning riding (1/ 161), that he is known to have owned only one mule, although shortly before this, in the chapter on riding animals (1/ 130), he had mentioned four mules. The reason is that, in the latter chapter, he drew on Ibn Jamā‘a’s al-Mukhtasar al-Kabīr (The Large Abridgment), whereas in discussing the Prophet’s guidance (peace and blessings be upon him) concerning riding, he relied on the words of his teacher, Shaykh al-Islām.

Perhaps the book’s length, and the different times at which it was composed and copied out in fair form, led the author to promise certain chapters and discussions that he was unable to complete. Thus, he mentioned devoting a separate discussion to matters unique to the Prophet (1/ 360, 383), and elsewhere to the rulings on sales with advance payment and deferred delivery (6/ 498), foods and drinks (6/ 422), and sale-and-buyback transactions (6/ 468). The book ended midway through the discussion of sales, without covering them fully.

In the following lines, we outline the arrangement of topics in the aforementioned sections of the book, with some observations.