Uddat Rasail fi Masail Fiqhiyya (matbu within Majmuat al-Rasail wal-Masail al-Najdiyya, al-juz al-thani)
- Author died
- 1225 AH
- Editions
- Dar Al-Asimah
ʿUddat Rasāʾil fī Masāʾil Fiqhiyya (Several Treatises on Jurisprudential Matters) is a collection of thirteen legal treatises and responsum letters authored by the Hanbali jurist and judge Hamad ibn Nasir ibn Uthman Al Mu'ammar (d. 1225 AH / 1810 CE), addressing diverse practical questions in Islamic jurisprudence and theology.
Publication and Structure
The work occupies sixty-two pages (pp. 32–94) within the second volume of Majmūʿat al-Rasāʾil wa-l-Masāʾil al-Najdiyya (Collection of Najdi Treatises and Legal Questions), published in its first edition at Matba'at al-Manar in Egypt in 1344 AH (1925/1926 CE) by order of Sultan Abd al-Aziz Al Saud.
The text is arranged into thirteen numbered epistolary treatises (rasāʾil). The majority of these letters—including the first through ninth—are epistolary replies sent to an interlocutor named Jumʿan ibn Nasir answering practical queries, while the tenth letter is addressed to Ibrahim ibn Muhammad. The thirteenth treatise concludes with an explicit date marking its completion in 1225 AH, the year of the author's death.
Scope and Contents
The treatises span a broad range of legal topics, with particular emphasis on family law, financial contracts, ritual acts, and communal disputes:
- Family Law and Personal Status: Detailed discussions on marriage stipulations, such as a bride conditioning the divorce of a co-wife or requiring the right of dissolution if terms are breached; conditional divorce (taʿlīq al-ṭalāq); the validity of divorce pronounced by a discerning minor (ṣabiyy); limits on a proxy’s authority in pronouncing divorce; the repetition of pronouncements during mutual dissolution (khulʿ); divorce formulas using figurative allusions (kināyāt al-ṭalāq); oaths of prohibition (al-ḥilf bi-l-ḥarām) and whether they constitute ẓihār or an expiable oath; marriage of orphan girls; the divorce pronounced by a terminally ill husband and the wife's inheritance rights; and rules governing the waiting period (ʿidda).
- Ritual Worship and Purification: Rules regarding latecomers joining congregational prayer (ṣalāt al-masbūq); praying behind an imam who makes grammatical errors in reciting Surat al-Fatihah; performing greeting prayers (taḥiyyat al-masjid) during times of prohibition; making up missed prayers in chronological sequence; the ten utterances of tahlīl after the Dawn (Fajr) and Sunset (Maghrib) prayers and raising one's voice in post-prayer remembrance (dhikr); and purificatory status of altered water.
- Commercial Transactions and Endowments: The leasing of animals for a share of crop output; the prohibition of selling debt for debt (bayʿ al-dayn bi-l-dayn) and two sales in one (bayʿatayn fī bayʿa); the preemption rights (shufʿa) in shared roads, wells, and trees; rules of sub-leasing leased properties; and endowment administration (waqf), including long-term leases and modifying the beneficiary conditions set by an endower when public interest requires.
- Penalties, Torts, and Communal Clashes: Theft and what constitutes secure custody (ḥirz); liability and blood money (diya) when two factions clash and an unidentified or identified killing occurs, citing local precedents such as disputes involving the Wada'in faction; and slanderous accusation (qadhf).
- Theological and Miscellaneous Matters: A doctrinal exposition of Surat al-Ikhlas as representing theoretical knowledge of monotheism (al-tawḥīd al-ʿilmī) compared to practical action (al-ʿamalī); the Quranic distinction between affirmed and negated forms of intercession (shafāʿa); the status of the supplicatory formula اللهم إني أسألك بحق السائلين عليك ("O Allah, I ask You by the right of those who ask of You"); equal gifting among children; and the traditional practice of variolation/smallpox inoculation (al-tawtīn), which the author viewed as disliked (makrūh) because of the risk of inflicting harm before illness occurs.
Method and Sources
The author relies upon the canonical texts of the Hanbali school while systematically comparing them with opinions from the Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi'i schools. He frequently references classic authoritative Hanbali treatises, including al-Mughnī and al-Muqniʿ by Ibn Qudāmah, al-Inṣāf by al-Mardāwī, al-Furūʿ by Ibn Mufliḥ, and the commentaries of Manṣūr al-Buhūtī on al-Muntahā and al-Iqnāʿ. In selecting preferred rulings (tarjīḥ), he draws heavily on the legal choices and works of Ibn Taymiyyah and his student Ibn al-Qayyim (specifically Iʿlām al-Muwaqqiʿīn).
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