when he assumed the governorship of Safed in 704 AH. This treatise comes closest to being a summary of the author’s ideas in the present book, both in its structure and its divisions, although I am certain that he composed it before Governance According to Islamic Law, as we shall explain in detail in the appropriate place. This treatise appears in the seventh collection of Collected Treatises, which I edited.

7. Scholars quoted from the book. Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Mawsilī (d. 774 AH) quoted from it in several chapters of his book Good Conduct That Safeguards the Realm of Kings (1). Al-Mardāwī cited it in Equity (7/303), concerning whether an emancipated slave inherits from his former master, and in (1/318), (8/438), and (10/228), concerning hashish. Other citations occur in al-Hajjāwī’s The Persuasive Exposition (4/3) and in Commentary on the Utmost Aspirations (3/73); al-Shirbīnī’s That Which Suffices the Needy (4/186), concerning hashish; al-San'ānī’s Paths of Peace (1/195), likewise concerning hashish; and Ibn Duwayyān’s Beacon of the Path (2/155, 259), on the same subject. Al-Tahtāwī also quoted from it in his Gloss on the Ascents of Success (2/86), concerning whether one who abandons the prayer is an unbeliever; the corresponding passage is in our book (p. 165). It was also quoted in Aid from the Worshipped (10/99), concerning the prescribed legal penalty for hashish.