Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Latif Al al-Shaykh

Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Latif Al al-Shaykh (Fatwas and Treatises of His Eminence Sheikh Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Latif Al al-Shaykh) is a multivolume compendium of the legal rulings, scholastic treatises, classroom commentaries, and official responsa of Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al al-Shaykh (d. 1389 AH / 1969 CE), the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and Head of Judges and Islamic Affairs Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …+1. The collection was assembled, edited, and arranged by his student Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Qasim Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….

Compilation and Printing

The compilation of the work was officially authorized by King Faisal ibn Abd al-Aziz through a royal decree dated 3 Shawwal 1390 AH, directing government bodies to facilitate access to official archives, seconding Ibn Qasim from the Scientific Institute in Mecca, and underwriting the printing costs at the Government Press in Mecca Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …+1. The effort was further supported during the reign of King Khalid ibn Abd al-Aziz, while the author's sons, Abd al-Aziz and Ibrahim, assisted during preparation, and Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz provided a typist Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …+1. Ibn Qasim commenced collecting, arranging, and transcribing the material in Dhu al-Qa'da 1392 AH and completed the manuscript in Dhu al-Qa'da 1397 AH, with printing concluding on 8 Jumada al-Ula 1405 AH across thirteen volumes containing 4,575 rulings and issues Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …+1.

Sources

The material was gathered from nine primary sources Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …:

• Classroom reports (taqarir): Lecture notes recorded by Ibn Qasim between 1357 and 1381 AH during Muhammad ibn Ibrahim's study circles, providing approximately 1,800 entries Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
• Dar al-Ifta archives: 134 files consulted between Ramadan and Dhu al-Qa'da 1392 AH, yielding 1,600 fatwas Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
• Presidency of Judges (later Ministry of Justice): 488 judicial files and 700 archival files, providing 627 fatwas Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
• The Mufti's Private Office: 140 files yielding 308 fatwas Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
• The Royal Court: 8 fatwas from its internal affairs bureau Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
• The Council of Ministers Bureau: 10 fatwas Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
• The author's private library: Independent longer treatises, including al-Jawab al-Wadih al-Mustaqim, Nasihat al-Ikhwan, Tahdhir al-Nasik, and a treatise on prohibiting the early slaughter of the sacrificial animal (hady) before the Day of Sacrifice Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
• Private students' collections: Approximately 60 rulings and letters Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
• al-Durar al-Saniyya fi al-Ajwiba al-Najdiyya: 26 fatwas authored individually or jointly by Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….

Method and Structure

The editor compared texts to remove verbatim repetitions between departments, omitted brief rulings whose substance was covered in more extensive ones, summarized lengthy texts where only excerpts contained the core legal point, removed names when cited disparagingly, and split multi-topic fatwas into their relevant chapters while retaining their official dispatch reference numbers Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …. From official department records, only items bearing Muhammad ibn Ibrahim's explicit name, seal, or draft designation were included Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …. Each fatwa was assigned a descriptive heading, and errors from earlier transcripts were corrected against surviving drafts Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….

The material is structured into three primary divisions Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …:

1. Creed (al-Aqaid): Divided into five topics covering God's existence and unity of essence, divine worship (uluhiyyah), divine attributes, subsidiary theological questions, and critiques of Sufism and Communism Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat ….
2. Jurisprudence (al-Fiqh): Preceded by an introduction to legal theory (usul al-fiqh), followed by substantive legal chapters arranged according to the standard Hanbali manual Zad al-Mustaqni and its commentary al-Rawd al-Murbi, spanning all topics from ritual purity to acknowledgments Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …+1.
3. General Knowledge (Ma'arif Ammah): Covering principles of Quranic exegesis (usul al-tafsir), tafsir rulings, Arabic language, poetry, foreign languages, geography, crafts and professions, libraries and censorship of publications, alphabetical assessments praising or critiquing published books, public speeches at the Muslim World League, education, and comprehensive subject indices Fatawa wa Rasail Samahat …+1.