Simplified fiqh manual

No products available at the moment

Stay tuned! More products will be shown here as they are added.

What a single-volume manual is for

To learn the rules before learning the debates. A simplified manual gives the adopted position without discussing the differences, in a fixed order: purification, prayer, zakat, fasting, pilgrimage, then transactions. You work through it chapter by chapter and you finish it, and that is its point: a major treatise is never finished.

What you will find

The abridged matns: Matn Abi Shuja' for the Shafi'i school, Akhsar al-mukhtasarat for the Hanbali school, and their equivalents in the other schools. Short, vowelled, made to be memorised.
Al-Fiqh al-muyassar and the contemporary manuals of the same kind: plain prose, short chapters, sometimes exercises at the end of each lesson.
The teaching manuals divided into numbered lessons, used in institutes and evening classes.
The illustrated editions for the movements of worship, useful on prayer and ablutions.
The material for children, vowelled, stopping at worship without touching transactions.

A school manual or a manual without a school

That is the first choice to make. An abridged matn is always attached to a school, and it gives that school's position without flagging it: naturally, since it was written for its students. A general contemporary manual often presents the majority position with a mention of the others. If you follow a course, take the manual of the school being taught. The school is stated on each product page.

What to check

The school, then, and the level. The vowelling if the text is meant to be memorised, which is the case for every matn. Whether a commentary is bound in the same volume, which changes the length and the price. And the real page count, since a thirty-page abridgement and a four-hundred-page manual carry the same label.

Related shelves

To move on to the commentary and the evidence, Complete fiqh manual. To see the four schools side by side, Comparative fiqh. For the school you are taught, Maliki fiqh, Hanafi fiqh, Shafi'i fiqh or Hanbali fiqh. Overview: Fiqh.

Order and shipping

Real stock displayed, dispatch within 24 to 48 working hours, delivery to France, Europe and the rest of the world. Tell us the school taught in your course and we will point to the matching matn rather than the best-selling one.

Which manual should I take as a beginner?

A contemporary manual of the Al-Fiqh al-muyassar type if you work alone: plain prose, short chapters, sometimes exercises. An abridged matn if you follow a course, taking the one of the school being taught. The school and the level are stated on each product page.

Does an abridged matn state its school?

Rarely in the text, and that is what surprises beginners: it gives its school's position without flagging it, since it was written for its students. We state the school on every product page for exactly that reason.

Should the matn be memorised or read?

The matns were written to be memorised: that is why they are short and vowelled. Reading them alone often leaves the reader unsatisfied, because the brevity assumes a commentary or a teacher. If you are not memorising, a prose manual will serve you better.

Do these manuals cover transactions?

Not all of them. Many stop at worship, that is purification, prayer, zakat, fasting and pilgrimage, and leave out sale, partnership and inheritance. That is especially true of material meant for children. The scope is stated on the product page.

When should I move to the complete manual?

When the rules are no longer enough and you want the evidence. A simplified manual says what to do; a complete treatise says why, and what those who think otherwise say. The move happens naturally on a question that resists you.