Handbook of Muslim Jurisprudence

If there is one quality distinguishing above all others the legislative work of the Prophet of Islam, it is quality of moderation. Truth lies in the middle: in his unswering adherence to this maxim lies the proof of his mission as a practical guide for human conduct, and the explanation of the permanence, during upwards of thirteen centuries enjoyed by the religious, and jural institutions which he framed. While other systems of jurisprudence have grown up, and run their course and passed away or at the best have altered their whole character in such a manner that only the student of antiquities can indetify in the living form the traces of the past-Muslim law remains at the present of all practical purposes the same as it was at the commencement. With the sphere of family relations, (marriage, succession, wills, gifts etc.) more specially, it has undergone hardly any modification since old days. It will stand the student in good stead if he will bear this principle in mind as he advances into what complications of Muslim jurisprudence. "Truth lies in the middle"; but the difficulty is to find the middle, or having found, to follow it through every branch and detail of social law, and specially such portions of it as relate to family rights in our society has created a need for some handbook in which the principles (at least) of that law might be studied by all concerned