Sharī'ah: The Islamic Law by Professor Abdur Rahman I. Doi is a foundational English-language study of Islamic jurisprudence, presenting the divine legal system of Islam in its full doctrinal breadth and scholarly depth. Written by a scholar who trained in fiqh and usūl al-fiqh at Cambridge, studied comparative and international law at the Hague and in Luxembourg, and spent his career as Director of the Centre of Islamic Legal Studies at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria, this work occupies a unique position in the field: it is simultaneously an introduction to Islamic law, a reference work for specialists, and a critical response to the tradition of Anglo-Muhammadan legal scholarship that placed colonial court decisions ahead of the Qur'ān and Sunnah as the primary sources of Islamic legal analysis.
The book is organised into six thematic parts, each treating a distinct domain of Sharī'ah with systematic thoroughness.
Part I: The Fountainhead of Sharī'ah lays the theoretical and doctrinal foundations. Chapter 1 opens with the nature of Sharī'ah itself — the Arabic term meaning "the path to be followed" — and establishes Allah as the sole sovereign Lawgiver whose authority is both the source and the limit of all legitimate human legislation. The author grounds this discussion in Qur'ānic injunctions on justice ('adl), examining both the philosophical character of Islamic justice and its institutional expression through the figure of the qādī (judge) and the principle of shūrā (mutual consultation). Chapters 2 and 3 examine the two primary sources — the Holy Qur'ān and the Sunnah — with extensive treatment of Qur'ānic exegesis (tafsīr), hadīth classification, the science of rijāl criticism, and the categories of Qur'ānic legal injunctions (āyāt al-ahkām). Chapter 4 surveys the secondary sources: ijmā' (scholarly consensus), qiyās (analogical deduction), ijtihād (independent legal reasoning), istihsān, istislāh, istishāb, and sadd al-dharā'i'. Chapter 5 provides detailed biographical portraits of the four Imams — Abū Hanīfah, Mālik ibn Anas, al-Shāfi'ī, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal — situating each within the intellectual history of early Islam and examining the distinctive methods, primary texts, and geographical reach of their respective schools.
Part II: Family Relations covers Islamic family law in exceptional depth across nine chapters. The discussion of marriage (zawāj) addresses its spiritual and social purposes, the question of its obligatory status, prohibited degrees, the conditions for valid solemnization, the role of the guardian (walī), and the rights of both parties to consent. Subsequent chapters examine ta'addud al-zawjāt (polygamy) with careful attention to the Qur'ānic conditions of justice and historical context, as well as unlawful forms of marriage. The coverage of talāq (divorce) is comprehensive, tracing the procedures, forms, and restrictions imposed by Sharī'ah — including a comparative account of pre-Islamic divorce practices — alongside the related institutions of khul' (wife-initiated dissolution), faskh (annulment), zihar, and li'ān. Chapters on 'iddah (the waiting period), mahr (dower), and nafaqah (maintenance) complete this section, addressing both primary source guidance and the rights and obligations of the parties during and after the dissolution of marriage.
Part III: Crime and Punishment provides a thorough treatment of Islamic criminal law. The author begins by examining the relationship between the individual, society, and the legal order, before surveying the categories of hudūd (fixed punishments) and ta'zīr (discretionary penalties). Individual chapters address homicide and qasas (the law of equality), adultery (zinā), defamation (qadhf), highway robbery (hirābah), theft (sariqah), intoxicants (khamr), and apostasy (riddah). Throughout, the author examines the stringent conditions required for the application of prescribed punishments, the principle that doubt (shubha) prevents application of hadd, and comparative perspectives on the deterrent and restorative functions of Islamic criminal law.
Part IV: Inheritance and Disposal of Property presents the Islamic law of succession with systematic precision. The conditions for inheritance, the fixed shares (farā'id) of each category of heir, the rules of exclusion (hajb), the 'awl doctrine for proportional reduction, and the scheme of radd (return of surplus) are all treated in detail. The section concludes with chapters on bequest (wasiyyah), gift (hibah), and endowment (waqf) — the three principal mechanisms through which property may be voluntarily transferred during life or after death.
Part V: The Islamic Economic System covers trade, contract law, and the moral architecture of Islamic commerce. Building on Qur'ānic and Sunnah guidance, the author examines the principles of valid sales, the rules governing offer and acceptance, prohibited contracts (including gharar and muzābanah sales), the various forms of commercial partnership (shirkah, qirād, mudārabah), agency (wakālah), guarantee (damān), hire (ijārah), and arbitration (tahkīm). The following chapter addresses the prohibition of ribā (usury) in depth, discusses zakāt and the other sources of the public treasury (bayt al-māl), and critically examines the moral failures of modern capitalist economic systems alongside the emergence of interest-free Islamic banking.
Part VI: External and Other Relations brings Sharī'ah into the domain of international law (siyar), inter-communal relations, and the ethics of armed conflict. The treatment of non-Muslims under Sharī'ah draws on Qur'ānic principles, the practice of the Prophet and the early Caliphs, and the jurisprudential tradition to articulate the rights, protections, and obligations of non-Muslim residents and citizens within a Muslim polity. The chapter on jihād carefully distinguishes its legal conditions from popular misconceptions, examines the ethics governing conduct in warfare, and addresses the Prophetic tradition that the greater jihād is the struggle against one's own carnal desires.
The concluding Chapter 26 offers a critical survey of Sharī'ah in the modern Muslim world — examining the influence of colonial legal systems, the wave of twentieth-century "law reforms" in countries including Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and Tunisia, and the debate over neo-ijtihād. The author assesses each proposed reform against the standard of classical Sharī'ah, arguing for takhayyur (eclectic selection across the schools) as a legitimate and historically grounded method for meeting contemporary legal needs without departing from the divine framework.
Sharī'ah: The Islamic Law remains one of the most rigorous and comprehensive treatments of Islamic jurisprudence in the English language — indispensable for students, scholars, legal practitioners, and all who wish to understand Islamic law as a living, divinely-rooted legal system rather than as a historical relic or a political abstraction.