Fiqh al-Salam (فِقهُ السَّلَم — Jurisprudence of the Forward/Advance Sale; *salam* [also *salaf*]: from *s-l-m*: to pay in advance; salam = a sale where the price is paid in advance [or at contract] and the goods are delivered later; also called bay' al-salaf [advance-payment sale] in some schools; the basic structure: [1] the buyer [rabb al-salam or musallim] pays the full price immediately at the time of contract; [2] the seller [al-musallam ilayh] promises to deliver goods of a specified quality, quantity, and description at a future date; [3] the goods may not yet exist or be in the seller's possession at the time of contract — they may need to be produced, grown, or manufactured; the paradox: salam appears to violate the normal rules against bay' al-gharar [sale with excessive uncertainty]: the goods don't exist yet; the seller doesn't own them; how can this be valid? the Quranic authorization: [1] 2:282: 'ya ayyuha alladhina amanu idha tadayantum bi-daynin ila ajalin musamman fa-ktubuh' [O you who believe, when you contract a debt with one another for a set term, write it down]; the 'debt' [dayn] here can include a salam contract — an obligation to deliver goods in the future; the prophetic hadith: [2] 'man aslafa fi shay' fa-fi kaylin ma'lumin wa-wazn ma'lum ila ajalin ma'lum' [Whoever enters into salam [aslafa] for something — let it be for a known measure, a known weight, to a known term] [Bukhari and Muslim]; this hadith establishes the conditions for valid salam; [3] Ibn Abbas narrates: 'the Prophet came to Medina and the people were entering into salam contracts for one, two, and three years on produce — so the Prophet said: [make salam] for a known measure, a known weight, to a known term'; the conditions for valid salam: [1] the price must be paid in full at the time of the contract [or immediately thereafter]; deferral of the price makes salam invalid [it would become a sale with deferred payment on both sides — which becomes bay' al-kali' bi-l-kali' = an exchange of two debts, which is prohibited]; [2] the commodity must be describable with precision: [a] type [jins]: rice, wheat, oil; [b] kind [naw']: basmati, jasmine; [c] quality [sifa]: grade A, grade B; [d] quantity [miqdar]: 100 kg, 50 liters; [3] the delivery date must be specified: a known term [ajal ma'lum]; [4] the place of delivery must be specified if relevant; [5] the commodity must be something that does not cease to exist before delivery [cannot enter salam for rare/unique items that might perish]; why salam is valid despite apparent gharar: [1] the risk is knowable and controllable: the buyer knows exactly what they will receive — precise description, quantity, delivery date; [2] the price is fully paid up front: the seller bears full risk of delivery; the buyer has taken the risk of market price change; [3] historical necessity: agricultural communities needed advance payment mechanisms to finance crop production; salam serves a genuine social need that justified the prophetic permission; [4] the guarantee: if the seller cannot deliver, the buyer is entitled to a refund or equivalent value; modern applications: [1] agricultural finance: Islamic banks use salam to finance farmers; the bank pays in advance for crops to be delivered at harvest; the bank may then re-sell the crops in the market [parallel salam]; [2] supply chain: advance payment to manufacturers for specified goods; [3] contrast with futures contracts: conventional futures are similar in concept but differ in that: [a] futures are standardized contracts traded on exchanges; salam is a bilateral contract; [b] futures delivery is often not intended [the contract is usually closed before delivery]; salam intends actual delivery; [c] conventional futures have no requirement for full price advance payment) is Islamic law's agricultural-finance instrument.
Fiqh al-Wasiyyah (فِقهُ الوَصِيَّة — Jurisprudence of the Will/Bequest; *wasiyyah*: from *w-s-y*: to connect, to charge, to recommend; wasiyyah = a bequest — a disposition of property to take effect after death; also: wasiyyah as general 'counsel' or 'recommendation' [from the same root]; the testator [musi] and the legatee [musa lahu]; the basic definition: the wasiyyah is a statement by a person with legal capacity directing that a portion of their property is to go to a specified beneficiary after their death; it takes effect after death [unlike a gift, which takes effect immediately]; the Quranic basis: [1] 2:180: 'kutiba 'alaykum idha hadara ahadakum al-mawtu in taraka khayran al-wasiyyatu li-l-walidayni wa-l-aqrabina bi-l-ma'rufi haqqan 'ala al-muttaqin' [Prescribed for you when death approaches one of you — if he leaves wealth — is that he make a bequest [wasiyyah] for parents and near relatives, according to what is right — a duty upon the God-fearing]; [2] 2:240: provision for wives through bequest; [3] 4:11-12: the detailed inheritance rules [mawaris] that immediately follow the general bequest command; the relationship of wasiyyah and mawaris [inheritance] is debated — the Quran gives both; the Prophetic limit: the famous wasiyyah hadith: Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas reported: 'I became seriously ill and the Prophet visited me; I said: O Messenger of God, I have property and only a daughter to inherit — may I bequeath two-thirds of my wealth? He said: No. I said: One-half? He said: No. I said: One-third? He said: One-third — and one-third is much [kathir]; it is better to leave your heirs wealthy than to leave them poor and begging from people' [Bukhari, Muslim]; the one-third limit is the maximum — anything beyond one-third requires all legal heirs' consent; the prohibition of bequest to legal heirs: the Prophetic hadith: 'la wasiyyata li-waritin' [No bequest is valid for a legal heir] [Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi]; the mawaris system already allocates shares to legal heirs; an additional bequest to an heir would disrupt this allocation; if all heirs consent, most schools permit bequest to an heir; conditions for a valid wasiyyah: [1] the testator [musi] must be: [a] adult and sane [mukallaf]; [b] making the bequest voluntarily [not under compulsion]; [c] the bequest may be made while terminally ill but with certain constraints; [2] the legatee [musa lahu] must be: [a] capable of ownership; [b] not a legal heir of the testator [per 'no bequest to an heir']; [c] specific enough to be identified; [3] the bequest amount: [a] must not exceed one-third of the net estate; [b] net estate = total estate minus debts and funeral expenses; [c] if the bequest exceeds one-third, the excess is void unless all legal heirs consent after the testator's death; [4] the subject matter [musa bihi]: must be capable of ownership and transfer; the revocability of wasiyyah: wasiyyah is revocable during the testator's life — unlike most contracts; the testator can modify or cancel the wasiyyah until death [or until falling into a legally defined terminal illness state where certain restrictions apply]; school differences: [1] all four major Sunni schools agree on the one-third limit and the prohibition of bequest to heirs; [2] minor differences in what constitutes 'capacity' for the terminally ill testator; [3] the Ja'fari Shi'i position: accepts bequest to legal heirs; [4] modern codifications: most Muslim-majority countries have codified wasiyyah law in civil codes based on the classical fiqh with some modifications) is Islam's most precisely bounded act of testamentary freedom.
Fiqh al-Shahadah (فِقهُ الشَّهَادَة — Jurisprudence of Testimony; *shahadah*: from *sh-h-d*: to witness, to observe, to testify; shahid = witness [also: martyr — one who has witnessed God with such intensity that death is the result]; shahada = the Islamic declaration of faith ['I bear witness that there is no god but God'] — from the same root; shuhud = witnesses [pl.]; the basic definition: shahadah in fiqh = the formal declaration of a competent witness before a qadi [judge] establishing a fact of legal consequence; distinct from: [a] khabar [report — general transmission of information]; [b] riwayah [hadith narration]; [c] iqrar [confession]; the Quranic foundation: [1] 2:282 [Ayat al-Mudayanah — the Debt Verse, the longest verse in the Quran]: 'wa-istashhidu shahidayn min rijalikum — fa-in lam yakuna rajulayn fa-rajulun wa-imra'atan mimman tardawna min al-shuhada' — an tadilla ihdahuma fa-tudhakkira ihdahuma al-ukhra' [and call to witness two witnesses from among your men — and if there are not two men, then a man and two women from those you approve as witnesses — so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her]; [2] 2:283: witness requirement for transactions not in writing; [3] 65:2: 'wa-ashhidu dhaway 'adlin minkum' [and call to witness two just persons from among you]; [4] 4:15: four witnesses required for zina [fornication/adultery]: 'al-lati ya'tina al-fahishah min nisa'ikum fa-istashhidu 'alayhinn arba'atan minkum' [those of your women who commit indecency — bring four witnesses from among you against them]; conditions of a valid witness [shurut al-shahid]: [1] Islam: the classical position [most schools] requires the witness to be Muslim for claims against Muslims; [2] bulugh [maturity/adulthood]: the witness must be adult; [3] 'aql [sanity/reason]; [4] hurriyyah [freedom — most schools; weakened or abolished in modern codifications]; [5] 'adalah [moral uprightness/probity]: the witness must be a person of known moral character; a fasiq [openly sinful person] cannot testify; 'adalah is presumed for Muslims [istishab al-'adalah] unless established otherwise; 'adalah can be undermined by jarh [impeachment] and ta'dil [accreditation] proceedings; the number of witnesses required by transaction type: [1] two witnesses for: commercial contracts; marriage [nikah — two witnesses required for validity]; divorce in some schools; [2] four witnesses for: zina [fornication/adultery] — making zina nearly impossible to prove through testimony; the four must have seen the act itself, not circumstantial evidence; [3] special rules: property claims: some schools accept one witness + the claimant's oath [hadith: the Prophet ruled with one witness and an oath in civil matters]; blood claims: many schools require two male witnesses; [4] the female witness question: 2:282's explicit provision of a man and two women for financial contracts has been interpreted variously: [a] strict: two women = one man only in financial contracts; [b] broader: the provision was practical [addressing literacy rates]; some modern scholars argue women's testimony is equal in principle; school positions: [1] Hanafi: accepts women's sole testimony in matters men typically don't witness [childbirth, breastfeeding]; [2] Maliki: similar expansion; [3] Shafi'i: stricter adherence to 2:282's formulation; [4] Hanbali: similar to Shafi'i; [5] Ja'fari [Shi'i]: generally similar to Sunni schools with variations in specific categories; the invalidators of testimony [mawani' al-shahadah]: [1] khasmiyyah [enmity] between witness and party; [2] 'adawah [personal hostility]; [3] direct benefit [da' al-mani' — the witness would benefit from the favorable outcome]; [4] prior perjury or hadd punishment for false accusation [qadhf] disqualifies permanently in most schools) is Islamic evidence law's central institution.
Fiqh al-Qisas (فِقهُ القِصَاص — Jurisprudence of Retaliation; *qisas*: from *q-s-s*: to trace, to follow the tracks; qisas = literally 'tracing the tracks' — i.e., following the harm back and exacting an equivalent response; the basic definition: qisas = equal retaliation for intentional homicide or intentional bodily injury; the retaliatory act must be equivalent to the original harm [life for life, eye for eye]; distinct from: [a] ta'zir [discretionary punishment by the judge]; [b] hudud [fixed divine punishments for specific crimes]; [c] diyah [blood money — the financial alternative to qisas]; the classification of killings: [1] al-qatl al-'amd [intentional homicide]: with a lethal weapon or lethal means; gives rise to qisas; [2] al-qatl shibh al-'amd [quasi-intentional homicide]: intentional act but not with a lethal weapon; in most schools, gives rise to diyah only, not qisas; [3] al-qatl al-khata' [unintentional homicide]: accident; gives rise to diyah only; the key Quranic verses: [1] 2:178-179: 'ya ayyuha al-ladhina amanu kutiba 'alaykum al-qisasu fi al-qatla — al-hurru bi-al-hurri wa-al-'abdu bi-al-'abdi wa-al-untha bi-al-untha — fa-man 'ufiya lahu min akhihi shay'un fa-ittiba'un bi-al-ma'rufi wa-ada'un ilayhi bi-ihsan — dhalika takhfifun min rabbikum wa-rahmah — fa-man i'tada ba'da dhalika fa-lahu 'adhab alim — wa-lakum fi al-qisasi hayatun ya uli al-albab la'allakum tattaqun' [O you who believe, prescribed for you is qisas concerning those killed — the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female — but whoever is pardoned by his brother, that is an easement and a mercy — so let there be performance with accepted conduct and payment to him with goodness — this is an alleviation from your Lord and a mercy — and whoever transgresses after that for him is a painful punishment — and for you in qisas there is life, O people of understanding, so that you may become God-fearing]; [2] 5:45: 'wa-katabna 'alayhim fiha anna al-nafsa bi-al-nafsi wa-al-'ayna bi-al-'ayn wa-al-anfa bi-al-anfi wa-al-udhuna bi-al-udhun wa-al-sinna bi-al-sinn wa-al-juruha qisas — fa-man tasaddaqa bihi fa-huwa kaffaratun lahu — wa-man lam yahkum bima anzala Allahu fa-ula'ika hum al-zalimun' [And We prescribed for them in it [the Torah]: life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and for wounds — retaliation; but whoever forgoes it as charity, it is an expiation for him; and whoever does not judge by what God has revealed — those are the wrongdoers]; the structural doctrine of qisas: [1] qisas as haqq al-'abd [right of the individual/victim]: qisas belongs to the victim or the victim's family [wali al-dam — guardian of the blood]; this is crucial: the victim's family can choose to [a] demand qisas [execution], [b] accept diyah [blood money], or [c] grant pardon ['afw]; the state cannot impose qisas over the victim's family's wishes — it is not a divine right [haqq Allah] but an individual right; [2] this makes qisas structurally different from hudud: hudud = divine right [haqq Allah]; the ruler enforces them and cannot remit them; qisas = individual right [haqq al-'abd]; only the victim/family can waive it; [3] 'afw [pardon] is Quranically encouraged: 2:178's structure: the default is qisas; but the verse pivots to 'but whoever is pardoned...' — presenting pardon as the mercy-option; 2:178's final statement: 'for you in qisas there is life' — deterrence through the seriousness of the consequence; 5:45's parallel: 'whoever forgoes it as charity, it is an expiation for him' — forgiving qisas accrues to the forgiver's spiritual account; hadith: 'whoever forgives, God will honor him'; [4] diyah [blood money] as the financial alternative: if qisas is waived in exchange for compensation, the diyah is paid; classical diyah = 100 camels [for male Muslim] or equivalent; modifications for female [half in classical fiqh], dhimmi, and other categories vary by school; modern codifications have fixed monetary equivalents; school differences on qisas applicability: [1] can a Muslim be executed for killing a dhimmi [non-Muslim protected person]? Hanafi: yes; Shafi'i: no; [2] father for killing his own child: most schools exempt the father from qisas; [3] group killing: one person killed by a group — all can be executed [qisas]; some schools limit this) is Islamic criminal law's most nuanced doctrine.
Fiqh al-Diyah is the body of Islamic law governing diyah, the fixed financial compensation owed for unlawful homicide or bodily injury, rooted in Quran 4:92, which prescribes for accidental killing of a believer the freeing of a believing slave together with diyah handed to the victim's family unless they remit it as charity. The classical jurists fixed the full diyah of a free male Muslim at one hundred camels, with recognized equivalents in gold (1,000 dinars), silver (10,000 or 12,000 dirhams), cattle, sheep, or garments, and graded these by the gravity of the act into intentional ('amd), quasi-intentional (shibh al-'amd), and purely accidental (khata') homicide, the latter two paid in installments over three years. A detailed schedule of arsh fixes proportional sums for the loss of limbs, senses, and organs and for named wounds (the shijaj), so that one of two paired members carries half the diyah and a single organ such as the nose or tongue the whole. Diyah functions as a haqq al-'abd, a private claim of the heirs that may be accepted in lieu of qisas (retaliation) and may be waived, distinguishing it from the public hudud. Liability for unintentional killing falls on the 'aqila, the agnatic kin or solidarity group who jointly bear the payment, a doctrine the schools elaborate differently. The four Sunni madhhabs and the Ja'fari school agree on the broad framework while diverging on the diyah of a woman, of non-Muslims, on the camel-types owed, and on the survival of the 'aqila in modern state-administered compensation.
Fiqh al-jirah is the branch of Islamic criminal and tort law governing injuries that fall short of killing (al-jinayat fima duna al-nafs), built on Quran 5:45 which, after stipulating life for life, declares 'and wounds equal for equal (wal-juruh qisas)', thereby grounding two parallel remedies: qisas (talionic retaliation, inflicting on the offender a wound matching the one he caused) where intentional injury permits exact equivalence, and arsh or diya (fixed monetary compensation) where equivalence is impossible or unsafe to replicate. The jurists distinguish wounds of the head and face (al-shijaj) in a graded schedule running from the harisa and damiya up through al-mudiha (the wound that lays bare the bone), al-hashima, al-munaqqila, al-ma'muma and al-damigha, alongside injuries to the body (al-jirah proper) such as al-ja'ifa that penetrates a body cavity, each carrying a defined fraction of the full blood-money; loss of organs and faculties (eyes, ears, limbs, senses) carries its own valuations. Retaliation requires intentionality, equality of the parties, healed and assessable injury, and the technical possibility of like-for-like without exceeding the original harm; otherwise compensation governs. The Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali and Ja'fari schools concur on the framework while differing in detail, and the entire field is classed as a haqq al-abd (a private claim of the victim), pardonable and compoundable, with medical and expert assessment central to fixing both culpability and quantum.
Kaffarah (expiation) is the body of Islamic law governing the prescribed acts that repair specific transgressions and oaths, drawn primarily from the Quran and structured around graduated alternatives that the offender must perform in a fixed order or, in some cases, by free choice. The Quran lays out several distinct expiations: kaffarat al-yamin for a broken oath (5:89), where one feeds ten poor persons the average of what one feeds one's own family, or clothes them, or frees a believing slave, and only if unable to do any of these does one fast three days; the kaffara for deliberately breaking the Ramadan fast, reported in hadith as the strictly ordered sequence of freeing a slave, then fasting two consecutive months, then feeding sixty needy persons; the kaffara for zihar (the pre-Islamic formula likening one's wife to one's mother's back) in 58:3-4, which requires freeing a slave, or two consecutive months of fasting, or feeding sixty before the spouses may resume relations; and the expiation for accidental homicide in 4:92, combining the freeing of a believing slave with the payment of blood-money (diyah) to the victim's family. The jurists of the four Sunni schools and the Jafari school agree on the broad framework while differing on whether particular expiations are ordered (tartib) or open to choice (takhyir), on the minimum quantity of food, and on the conditions of fasting and emancipation; in the post-slavery era the surviving options are fasting and feeding.
Fiqh al-Nadhr is the branch of Islamic law governing the nadhr, a self-imposed pledge by which a legally responsible Muslim binds himself before God to perform an act of devotion that was not otherwise obligatory, transforming a voluntary good into a personal duty whose neglect incurs liability. The Qur'an praises those who keep their vows in 76:7 ('they fulfil their vows and fear a Day whose evil is widespread') and commands in 22:29 'let them fulfil their vows', while the Prophetic tradition both honours the binding nadhr of obedience and warns against vowing rashly. Jurists distinguish the unconditional nadhr (nadhr tabarrur), the conditional or suspended nadhr (nadhr al-mujazah, 'if God grants me X I will do Y'), and the resented oath-like nadhr (nadhr al-lajaj). They agree that a vow is valid only when its object is a defined act of worship or obedience that the vower is capable of and that is permissible; a vow to commit a sin, to do the impossible, or concerning something one does not own is void and not to be honoured. For an unfulfilled, abandoned, or impossible vow many schools require kaffarat al-yamin, the expiation of a broken oath (feeding or clothing ten poor persons, freeing a slave, or fasting three days), reflecting the hadith that the expiation of a vow is the expiation of an oath, though the Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, and Ja'fari schools differ markedly on scope, form, and the status of the vow of disobedience.
Fiqh al-Yamin is the jurisprudence governing the oath (yamin, pl. ayman), the solemn swearing by God that creates a binding moral and legal obligation, regulated principally by Quran 2:225 and 5:89. Jurists across the four Sunni schools and the Ja'fari madhhab classify oaths into three kinds: laghw al-yamin, the idle or unintended utterance (such as the habitual 'no, by God' and 'yes, by God') for which there is no liability because the heart did not resolve upon it; al-yamin al-mun'aqida, the binding oath made with genuine intention regarding a future act, whose violation requires the kaffarat al-yamin specified in 5:89 (feeding ten poor persons, clothing them, or freeing a slave, and failing all three, a fast of three days); and al-yamin al-ghamus, the false deliberate oath sworn knowingly about the past, named 'the plunging oath' because it plunges the swearer into sin and into the Fire, a major sin (kabira) so grave that the majority hold it admits no expiating kaffara but only sincere repentance (tawba) and the restoration of any wrong done. A valid oath in Islam must be sworn solely by God, by one of His names, or by an attribute (sifa) of His essence; swearing by anything created is forbidden and, depending on the school, either invalid or merely sinful, and the Prophet commanded that one who swears must swear by God or stay silent.
Fiqh al-udhiyah governs the ritual animal sacrifice (also called qurbani or nahr) offered on the Day of Nahr (10 Dhu al-Hijjah) and the following days of tashriq, revived by Muslims as the living sunnah of Ibrahim, who was ransomed of his son by a great sacrifice (37:107), and grounded in the Quranic instruction to pray to one's Lord and sacrifice (108:2) and in the description of the sacrificial camels (budn) as among God's symbols (sha'a'ir), whose flesh and blood do not reach God but whose meaning is the piety of the offerer (22:36-37). The jurists permit only an'am livestock — sheep (one per household sufficing for a family per the majority and the Maliki preference), goats, cattle, and camels — with cattle and camels each admitting seven shareholders; the animal must reach the prescribed age (a jadha' lamb of about six months to a year, a thaniyy goat of one year, cattle of two years, a camel of five) and be free of disqualifying defects such as obvious blindness, manifest illness, evident lameness, and emaciation. The valid time begins after the Eid prayer and khutba on 10 Dhu al-Hijjah and extends, for the majority, through the days of tashriq, with the recommended distribution dividing the meat into three portions for the household, for relatives and neighbours, and for the poor; the schools divide between the majority view that udhiyah is a strongly emphasised sunnah (sunnah mu'akkada) and the Hanafi position that it is wajib upon every resident who possesses the nisab.
Al-aqiqah is the recommended animal sacrifice offered in thanksgiving on behalf of a newborn child, typically on the seventh day after birth, accompanied by the naming of the infant, the shaving of the head, and the distribution of charity equal in weight to the shorn hair in silver or its value. Its scriptural basis rests on the hadith of Samura ibn Jundub, reported in the Sunan collections, that 'every child is pledged (rahinah) by its aqiqah, slaughtered for it on the seventh day, named, and its head shaved,' and on the hadith of Aisha and of Umm Kurz indicating two comparable sheep (shatani mukafiatani) for a boy and one for a girl. The jurists overwhelmingly classify it as a confirmed sunnah (sunnah muakkadah) or strongly recommended (mustahabb), with the Zahiri school and some Hanbali voices treating it as closer to obligatory, while the Hanafi school regards it as merely permissible (mubah) or a pre-Islamic custom retained as a meritorious act. The rite is closely tied to tahnik (rubbing the newborn palate with a softened date), to bestowing a good name, and to almsgiving, and it functions at once as a public expression of gratitude to God, a symbolic redemption of the child, and the formal welcome of the infant into the believing community. Its detailed rulings — the eligible animals, the seventh-day timing with later make-up dates, the apportioning of the meat, and the silver charity for the hair — are elaborated across the Sunni schools and the Ja'fari tradition with broad agreement on the substance and variation in emphasis.
Fiqh al-walima treats the legal and ethical rulings of the wedding banquet (walima al-urs), the feast customarily held by the bridegroom after the consummation of marriage to publicize and celebrate the union. Its primary textual basis is the Prophet's command to Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, upon seeing the trace of saffron-perfume on him after his marriage, to 'hold a walima, even with a single sheep' (awlim wa law bi-shat), reported in al-Bukhari and Muslim, which the schools read as establishing the walima as at least a strongly emphasized sunna and, for some Zahiris and a minority, as obligatory. A second pillar is the duty laid on the invited guest: 'When one of you is invited to a walima, let him come,' and the warning that 'whoever does not answer the invitation has disobeyed God and His Messenger,' rendering acceptance of the wedding banquet a near-binding obligation (wajib or sunna mu'akkada) distinct from voluntary feasts. The jurists across the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali and Ja'fari schools debate its timing, the minimum acceptable fare, whether fasting guests must attend, and the conditions excusing non-attendance, such as the presence of forbidden entertainment or wine. Equally central is the Prophetic ethic of moderation and the celebrated rebuke that the worst food is the food of a walima to which the rich are summoned and the poor are turned away, anchoring the feast in inclusiveness, restraint, and the avoidance of ostentatious extravagance (israf and mubahat).
Fiqh al-khitan treats the legal status, basis, and modalities of circumcision (khitan for males, khifad or khafd for the cutting in females), grounded in the prophetic hadith of the five acts of the innate disposition (al-fitra) reported in Bukhari and Muslim, which lists circumcision (al-khitan) alongside shaving the pubic hair, trimming the moustache, clipping the nails, and plucking the underarm hair, and anchored scripturally in the Quranic command at 16:123 to follow the upright milla of Ibrahim, who according to the hadith circumcised himself with an adze (qadum) at eighty years. Classical jurists divide on the male ruling: the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools deem it obligatory (wajib) as a defining marker of the Muslim community and a condition bearing on the validity of certain acts, while the Hanafi and Maliki schools hold it a confirmed sunna (sunna mu'akkada) or meritorious custom rather than a strict duty. The Ja'fari (Imami) school treats male circumcision as obligatory and strongly recommends performing it on the seventh day after birth, often joined to the aqiqa. Jurists discuss recommended timing (commonly the seventh day, though valid until and after puberty), the precise extent of removal, exemption in cases of medical or congenital impossibility, and the deep significance of the rite within the Abrahamic covenant as a sign of submission, purity, and belonging to the community of the prophets.
Fiqh al-rada is the branch of Islamic family law governing rada (suckling) and the milk-kinship (al-qaraba min al-rada) it creates, whereby a child nursed by a woman not its biological mother contracts permanent marriage prohibitions toward her and her relatives identical to those arising from blood. The cornerstone text is Quran 4:23, which lists among the forbidden women 'your mothers who suckled you and your sisters through suckling' (ummahatukum allati ardanakum wa-akhawatukum min al-rada), placing the milk-mother and milk-sister squarely among the mahram. Jurists derive supporting principles from 2:233, which fixes the natural nursing term at two complete years (hawlayni kamilayn), and from the Prophetic dictum 'yahrumu min al-rada ma yahrumu min al-nasab' (suckling forbids what lineage forbids). The schools diverge sharply on the quantum required to establish kinship: the Hanafi and Maliki schools hold that any amount of milk reaching the infant's stomach suffices, while the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools, relying on Aisha's report, require five separate, satiating feedings (khams radaat mushbiat). They further differ on the maximum age of effective nursing, the means of proof, and the status of milk delivered by means other than direct suckling. The Ja'fari school sets detailed conditions of its own. This article surveys the Quranic basis, the hadith corpus, the points of consensus and disagreement, and the practical consequences of milk-kinship for marriage and mahram relations.
Hadana in Islamic law denotes the right and duty of physically rearing, sheltering, and nurturing a minor child who cannot yet care for itself, a station distinct from wilaya (legal guardianship over person and property) and from nafaqa (financial maintenance). The jurists ground the mother's primacy in the early years on the Prophet's instruction to a divorced woman who feared losing her child: 'You have more right to him (anti ahaqqu bihi) so long as you do not remarry,' and on hadith placing the suckling and small child in the mother's bosom. The fuqaha enumerate conditions for any custodian: legal capacity and sanity (aql), bulugh, integrity and trustworthiness (amana) such that the child is not endangered, ability to rear, freedom from contagious harm, being Muslim where the child is Muslim per most schools, and crucially that the female custodian not marry a man who is a stranger (non-mahram) to the child, since such marriage forfeits her right in the majority view. They differ on the age at which physical custody ends and transfers to the father or the next agnate, or at which the discerning child (mumayyiz) may choose between parents: the Hanafis fix roughly seven for a boy and nine or puberty for a girl; the Shafiis grant the child of about seven a choice; the Hanbalis likewise allow the boy of seven to choose; the Malikis extend the mother's custody of a boy until puberty and of a girl until marriage or consummation; and the Jafari school commonly assigns the mother custody to two years for a boy and seven for a girl, though contemporary jurists temper all these figures. Governing every ruling is maslahat al-mahdun, the best interests and welfare of the ward, which can override the ordinary order of entitlement.
Nafaqah denotes the legally enforceable duty of financial maintenance owed within the family — most prominently the husband's obligation to provide for his wife, alongside a parent's duty to support minor and incapable children and the reciprocal duty of solvent adult children toward needy parents. The Quran grounds spousal maintenance in 4:34 ('men are the maintainers — qawwamun — of women') and 65:6-7 ('let the affluent spend according to his means'), establishing the governing standard of ma'ruf, that is, customary sufficiency calibrated to the husband's capacity and the wife's station. The classical jurists — Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, and Ja'fari — concur that the wife's nafaqah comprises food (ta'am), clothing (kiswah), and lodging (maskan), and the schools differ chiefly on whether it is measured by the husband's means, the wife's social rank, or both, and on whether nushuz (the wife's unjustified withholding of conjugal availability or departure from the marital home) suspends the entitlement. A defining feature, emphasized in Maliki and Ja'fari doctrine, is that unpaid maintenance accrues as a binding debt (dayn) recoverable from the husband even after the period lapses or divorce intervenes, unlike a mere lapsed courtesy. The article surveys the Quranic and prophetic basis, the heads of obligation across kin, the conditions and the doctrine of nushuz, and the comparative positions of the madhahib.
Zihar (al-zihar, from zahr, 'back') is a pre-Islamic Arabian formula of conjugal repudiation in which a husband declared his wife unlawful to him by saying she was to him 'like the back of my mother' (anti alayya ka-zahri ummi), thereby suspending the marriage indefinitely while denying the wife either remarriage or release. The practice is addressed directly in Sura al-Mujadila (58:1-4), revealed concerning Khawla bint Tha'laba (also given as Khawla bint Malik ibn Tha'laba), whose husband Aws ibn al-Samit pronounced zihar against her and who then 'disputed' (tujadiluka) with the Prophet and complained to God, the sura taking its name from her plea; the Quran condemns the formula as 'an utterance both odious and false' (munkar min al-qawl wa-zur) since a wife is not in fact a mother, abolishes it as a valid divorce, and yet, rather than nullifying its gravity, imposes an expiation (kaffara) that must be discharged 'before they touch one another': freeing a slave, or, failing that, fasting two consecutive months, or, failing that, feeding sixty needy persons (60:3-4). Across the Sunni schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali) and the Ja'fari school the husband who pronounces zihar is forbidden intimacy until the graded kaffara is performed, though the schools differ on the exact wording that triggers it, whether it can be temporary or conditional, and how the consecutive fast is reckoned, making zihar a classic locus for the fiqh of oaths, expiation, and marital law.
Li'an (mutual sworn imprecation) is the juristic procedure prescribed in Surat al-Nur 24:6-9 for the case in which a husband accuses his wife of zina (adultery) yet cannot produce the four eyewitnesses that the ordinary law of qadhf (false accusation) demands; rather than suffer the eighty-lash penalty for slander or see his wife stoned without proof, the spouses exchange a fixed sequence of solemn oaths before the judge. The husband swears four times by God that he is truthful in his charge, then a fifth time invoking God's curse (la'na) upon himself if he is lying; the wife averts the hadd punishment by swearing four counter-oaths that he lies, capped by a fifth invoking God's wrath (ghadab) upon herself if he speaks the truth. The classical schools agree that completed li'an produces grave legal effects: the marriage is dissolved, the spouses are forbidden to one another, and where the husband disavows a child, paternity (nasab) is denied and the child is attached to the mother. Beyond the procedural mechanics, the schools differ over whether the resulting separation is a revocable divorce, an irrevocable one, or a permanent prohibition (tahrim mu'abbad), over the conditions that trigger li'an, and over what each spouse's refusal to swear entails, making li'an a rich locus of disagreement among the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, and Ja'fari jurists.
Fiqh al-ila concerns the case of a husband who swears a binding oath (yamin) to abstain from sexual relations with his wife, a pre-Islamic Arabian practice by which a man could leave his wife in indefinite limbo, neither truly married nor free to remarry. The Quran addresses it directly in surat al-Baqara (2:226-227): 'For those who swear abstention from their wives there is a waiting (tarabbus) of four months; then if they return, indeed Allah is Forgiving and Merciful; and if they resolve upon divorce, then indeed Allah is Hearing and Knowing.' The jurists agree the verse fixes a fixed term of four months after which the husband is confronted with a binary choice: he must either return (fay') by resuming relations, which requires expiation of his broken oath (kaffarat al-yamin per 5:89 — feeding or clothing ten poor persons, freeing a slave, or fasting three days), or release her through divorce (talaq). The reform protects the wife from cruel suspension and limits the duration of harm. The major fiqh dispute is procedural: the Hanafis hold that upon expiry of four months the marriage dissolves automatically as a single irrevocable divorce (talaq ba'in), whereas the Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, and Ja'fari schools require the wife to petition a judge who summons the husband and compels him either to return or to pronounce talaq, divorce thus being judicially enforced rather than self-executing.
Fiqh al-Talaq (the jurisprudence of divorce; from *t-l-q*, to release or set free; talaq = the dissolution of a valid marriage by the husband's pronouncement, distinct from khul' which the wife initiates by compensation, faskh which a judge decrees, and li'an which follows a sworn adultery accusation). The Quran treats divorce as a permitted but disfavoured last resort — a hadith calls it 'the most hateful of permitted things to God' — and surrounds it with protections: 2:229 limits the revocable divorce to two pronouncements after which the husband must either 'retain in kindness or release with goodness'; 2:228 sets the waiting period ('idda) at three menstrual cycles (or, per 65:4, three months for those who do not menstruate and until delivery for the pregnant); 65:1 commands that women be divorced at the onset of their 'idda, not arbitrarily, and forbids expelling them from their homes during it. Jurists distinguish talaq al-sunna (the approved method: a single revocable pronouncement during a period of purity in which no intimacy has occurred, allowing reconciliation) from talaq al-bid'a (the innovated method: three pronouncements at once, or divorce during menstruation), and they distinguish raj'i (revocable, where the husband may take his wife back during the 'idda without a new contract, per 2:228) from ba'in (irrevocable). After a third and final divorce, 2:230 bars remarriage between the couple unless the woman first marries another man in a genuine marriage that then naturally ends — a barrier against treating divorce lightly. The four Sunni schools historically counted three pronouncements uttered in one sitting as three irrevocable divorces, while a major minority view associated with Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim, adopted in much modern legislation, counts them as a single revocable divorce; the Ja'fari Shi'a require two witnesses and reject divorce pronounced in anger or in a single triple formula. Modern Muslim family-law codes have widely restricted unilateral and triple talaq, requiring documentation, arbitration, or judicial oversight.
A practical Dawoodi Bohra guide to what is owed when a Ramadan fast is broken. The key distinction is between two very different situations. If a fast is missed for a valid excuse — illness, travel, haid or nifas, or other accepted reasons — only qaza is owed: you simply make up the day later, fasting one day for each one missed. But if a person deliberately breaks a valid Ramadan fast without any lawful excuse — for example by intentionally eating, drinking, or by marital intercourse during the fasting day — the matter is far heavier: such a person owes BOTH qaza (making up the day) AND kaffarah, the graded expiation. The classical kaffarah is structured as an ordered sequence: freeing a believing slave; or, failing that, fasting for two consecutive months; or, failing that, feeding a fixed number of poor persons. Because the institution of slavery has lapsed, the live options today are the consecutive fast and the feeding of the needy. The exact counts, food amounts, and which breaches trigger full kaffarah are matters codified in Da'a'im al-Islam and the community Mansak, so this guide gives the framework and asks you to confirm the precise rulings with your aamil saheb.
Zakat is one of the pillars of Islam, a yearly purifying due on qualifying wealth that the Quran pairs again and again with namaz (for example 2:43). The basic principle is that wealth which sits above a minimum threshold (nisab) for a full lunar year is given at a fixed rate of 2.5 per cent (one-fortieth) once a year. Nisab is the floor below which no zakat is owed; it is classically measured against gold or silver, and in practice the silver figure is often used because it captures more givers. Zakatable wealth typically includes cash in hand and in accounts, gold and silver, trade goods, and money owed to you that you expect to recover; everyday personal items such as your home, clothing and tools are not counted. For Dawoodi Bohras, zakat sits alongside other dues and wajibat rendered to the establishment of the Dai al-Mutlaq, so personal figures and the manner of payment should be settled with your aamil. The app includes a Zakat calculator to help you estimate the amount.
Sadaqat al-fitr, often simply called fitra, is the obligatory charity given at the close of the month of Ramadan, before the Eid al-Fitr prayer. It is paid on behalf of every member of the household — yourself, your spouse, your children and any dependants in your care — as a measure of a staple food (or, by long-standing practice, its monetary value). Its twofold purpose is well established: it purifies and completes the believer's fast, making good any shortfall or idle talk during Ramadan, and it ensures that the poor among the community are fed and able to share in the joy of Eid. In Dawoodi Bohra practice the fitra is given through the establishment of the Dai al-Mutlaq (TUS), so that it is collected and distributed correctly and reaches those entitled to it. The amount per person and the exact cut-off time are set and announced each year, so the practical step for every household is simple — confirm the current amount and the deadline with your aamil saheb, then pay before the Eid namaz.