The Muslim jurist's handbook that came to define Ottoman legal codes

Halabi, Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-. Kitab al-Multaqa al-Abhur [The Book of the Confluence of the Seas].

€ 3,500.00

A complete manuscript of Ibrahim al-Halabi's (1460-1549 CE) greatest work, "The Confluence of the Seas", a book of law which aimed to summarize clearly the most important laws and interpretations in the huge corpus of Hanafi jurisprudence (a major school of Islamic law) and to provide precise guidelines for nearly any situation. The work, completed by al-Halabi in 1517 CE, had an immense influence: al-Halabi's work underpinned Ottoman law codes right up to the end of the empire, and defined and explained the rules and regulations of daily life for countless Muslims.

This 17th century manuscript is an early example of this seminal text, which under Suleyman the Magnificent became the standard textbook in Ottoman madrasas and retained this status for hundreds of years. The "Confluence of the Seas" describes the legal treatment of everything from taxes and inheritance to ritual purity and pilgrimage, and even blood money, and the rights of the enslaved.

Throughout fifty-seven chapters, al-Halabi carefully grades each rule or law based on his reading of its correctness, explains his reasoning, and sorts conflicting or more minor rules by priority, noting which should be used first in a given situation, and which should only be considered as suggestions, or in particular circumstances. This made the work a particularly useful and even flexible tool, and one which greatly shaped Muslim law in general, but particularly under the Ottomans.