what is lawful and unlawful, a neighbor’s right of pre-emption, reciting the basmalah (“In the name of Allah”) aloud, repeating the phrases of the iqāmah (the call announcing the start of prayer) twice or saying them once, combining two prayers, removing ritual impurity, retaliation in kind, the contracting parties’ right to cancel before parting, compensation under an invalid contract, leasing and hiring, and similar questions over which disagreement had become widespread. This was especially so because, after the third century AH, disputed questions began to be collected separately. Abū Bakr al-Sayrafī was, as far as I can judge, the one who did this, and others followed his example until they had compiled many books devoted exclusively to disputed questions.

Most of these authors confined themselves to questions on which Abū Hanīfah and al-Shāfiʿī differed.

The principal questions they treated separately number about four hundred. These are found in the major commentaries and works on juristic disagreement compiled by scholars of the various schools in Khurasan and Iraq. Yet those who treated disputed questions comprehensively, such as Judge Abū Yaʿlā, included many thousands—four thousand, or fewer or more—whereas those who confined themselves to the very most important included about a hundred