A Hanbali Epitome: A Student’s Guide

This book deals with the epidemic of smoking, which enslaves many of today’s Muslims, and which is aggravated by that most victims belittle its dangers and deny its prohibition.

This book includes a discussions of intoxicants, establishing the prohibition of various practices associated with them, as well as penalties (in both lives) for those who partake in them.

This book also includes a discussion of narcotics, with an overview of marijuana and qaat (or khat). Based on their established effects and harms, we conclude that narcotics are strongly prohibited, except in very limited medical settings.

This book, we hope, will provide many Muslims with guidance toward a healthier, cleaner and worthies Islamic personality. My Allah grant us guidance and facilitation.

Formal prayer (salat) is the second pillar of Islam, and the most important of a Muslim’s acts of worship. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: “The first of one’s actions for which a slave of Allah will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment will be one’s prayers. If they are correct and accounted for, then he (or she) will have succeeded (gained paradise); and if they are lacking, then he (or she) will have failed (lost paradise). If there is something defective in his (or her) obligatory prayers, the Lord will say: ‘See if my slave has any supererogatory prayers with which that which was defective in his (or her) obligatory prayers may be completed. Then the rest of his (or her) deeds will be judged in like manner.” (At-Tirmidhi and others) Shaykh Mashhur Hasan Salman has compiled a list of the most common errors that we make when we pray, discussing and explaining each one. This book is a valuable aid to Muslims hoping to perfect their prayers, so that their prayers may be free of defects and acceptable to Allah. This new and revised edition of the English translation of his work presents the text in a fluent, highly readable style.

This book offers a detailed presentation of the theory of Muslim law (usul al-figh). Often regarded as the most sophisticated of the traditional Islamic disciplines, Muslim jurisprudence is concerned with the way in which the rituals and laws of religion are derived from the Qur’an and the Sunna – the precedent of the Prophet. Revelation, which is given to man to restore unity and help him achieve a just and devout order in society as well as in the soul, must be interpreted so as to render it practicable in every culture, while not betraying its spirit and immutable provisions. To achieve this, additional sources of legal authority are recognized, including consensus (ijma), analogical deduction (qiyas), public interest (maslaha) and local customary precedent (urf). In employing these, the jurist guards the five principles which it is the purpose of Islamic law to uphold, namely, the right to life, sound mind, property, lineage and religion.