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Buhuth li-Bad al-Nawazil al-Fiqhiyya al-Muasira

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Buhuth li-Bad al-Nawazil al-Fiqhiyya al-Muasira

Buhuth li-Baʿd al-Nawazil al-Fiqhiyya al-Muʿasira (Studies on Selected Contemporary Juridical Issues) is a modern Arabic compendium on contemporary Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh al-nawazil) compiled by an anonymous student of Islamic law. The work examines novel legal questions arising from modern technological, economic, and medical developments by synthesizing traditional juristic principles with contemporary scholarly determinations.

Origin and Composition

The author composed the work in conjunction with a doctoral-level course on contemporary legal issues (fiqh al-nawazil) taught by Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Turayqi. The course utilized seminar discussions and assigned targeted research into emerging questions to familiarize students directly with relevant source literature.

Structure and Contents

The treatise is organized into thematic sections addressing distinct categories of modern legal problems:

  • Issues in Ritual Law (al-Ibadat): Examines the ritual purity of treated wastewater, the payment of zakat on corporate stocks and bonds, and the verification of the crescent moon sighting via telescopes and astronomical observatories.
  • Financial and Commercial Transactions (al-Nawazil al-Maliyya): Covers the status of paper currency regarding zakat and usury (riba), the legal effects of currency fluctuations and inflation on debts, key money or transfer premiums (badal al-khuluw), constructive possession (taqabud) in modern banking operations, concluding commercial contracts via modern telecommunications, the sale of trade names, intellectual property, and patents, and the ruling on the commercial sale of human organs.
  • Torts and Penal Law (al-Jinayat): Evaluates civil and criminal liability arising from automobile and traffic accidents.
  • Judicial Procedure (al-Qada'): Analyzes the admissibility and evidentiary weight of circumstantial evidence (qara'in), including modern forensic tools such as fingerprints, audio recordings, and video surveillance.
  • Medical Issues (al-Nawazil al-Tibbiyya): Investigates the ethics of medical treatment and physician liability, the definition of brain death, the withdrawal of artificial life support and triage over resuscitation devices, organ transplantation from living and deceased donors, the reattachment of severed limbs following punitive amputations (hadd or qisas), post-mortem autopsies and dissections, reconstructive versus cosmetic surgery, medications regulating menstruation or contraception, and artificial insemination.

Methodology and Sources

The author approaches each issue systematically:

  1. Providing linguistic and technical definitions alongside factual, economic, or medical background.
  2. Outlining relevant classical precedents from the four Sunni legal schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali).
  3. Reviewing scriptural evidence, legal reasoning via analogy (qiyas), and legal maxims (qawaʿid fiqhiyya), such as weighing conflicting harms and public welfare (al-maslaha al-mursala).
  4. Citing the resolutions of contemporary collective bodies, notably the Islamic Fiqh Academy of the Muslim World League, the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, and the Council of Senior Scholars and the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta in Saudi Arabia, as well as individual contemporary jurists.
  5. Concluding with a weighted juristic preference (tarjih) and appending a bibliography of consulted classical and contemporary references at the end of each topic.

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