A Guide to a Life of Moral Integrity

An Annotated Translation of Bustān al-ʿārifīn by Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī

A translation of al-Samarqandī's Bustān al-ʿārifīn – a tenth-century religio-legal primer to navigating the chaos and conflict of everyday life – accompanied by an introduction to its literary and historical contexts, and an accessible commentary exploring the larger themes encountered in the work.

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Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC

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SKU (ISBN): 978-1-4632-4639-6

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- Hardback (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4639-6
- eBook PDF (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4640-2 on Gorgias Mobile App (Glassboxx)

Publication Status: In Print

Series: Islamic History and Thought 35

Publication Date: Mar 28,2025

Interior Color: Black

Trim Size: 7 x 10

Page Count: 446

Languages: English

ISBN: 978-1-4632-4639-6

Price: $100.00 (USD)

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The tenth-century Bustān al-ʿārifīn is a manual for believers in which the jurist Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī (from Balkh and Samarqand, d. ca. 986) offers counsel on religio-legal questions. The text is composed of 159 chapters, most of which open with a question about Islamic law and answer it by offering contrasting scholarly opinions and then establishing where Hanafi law stands on the question. The strong moral character of Bustān al-ʿārifīn derives from the aspiration of Islam to cover every possible human contingency, from birth to death and beyond, in the grace of God. Examples of the concerns in the text are whether one can have dealings with non-Muslims, when to invoke God in prayer, staying clear of exposing oneself to suspicion, the aversion to spitting in the mosque, the interpretation of dreams, and whether it is allowed to play the tambourine, kiss a child, accept a gift from rulers, or wail for the dead. Despite its considerable currency among past and present-day Muslims, little study has been devoted to Bustān al-ʿārifīn, much less a translation. The translation of the text is accompanied by an introduction to its literary and historical contexts and an accessible commentary exploring the larger themes encountered in the work.

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	Contributor	Biography
	PeriBearman	Peri Bearman is a scholar of Islamic intellectual history and widely known as an editor of major works of scholarship on the Islamic Near East. She was editor, inter alia, of the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the AOS journal (JAOS), monograph, and essay series. She is the author of A History of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (Lockwood Press, 2018) and co-editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law (Ashgate, 2014), The Law Applied: Contextualizing the Islamic Shariʿa (I.B. Tauris, 2008), and The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress (ILSP, Harvard Law School, 2005).

Table of Contents (v)

Preface (vii)

Introduction (1)

1. The Historical Context (1)

2. The Legal Context (5)

3. The Author (9)

4. The Work (19)

Translation of Bustān al-ʿārifīn, The Garden of the Knowledgeable (23)

Table of Contents (24)

Commentary (289)

1. Preface (289)

2. Knowledge (290)

3. Quran (293)

4. Hadith (296)

5. Preaching (299)

6. Islamic History (302)

7. Theological Concepts (304)

8. Legal Arenas (308)

9. The Judge and the Mufti (313)

10. Education (316)

11. Rulers (319)

12. Ablutions (321)

13. Prayer and the Mosque (325)

14. Non-Muslims (329)

15. Marriage (331)

16. Language and Literature (333)

17. Manners: Eating, Drinking, Sleeping (337)

18. Manners: Friendship and Company (340)

19. Dress (343)

20. Medicine and Illness (346)

21. Animals (349)

22. Recreation and Music (352)

Cited Works (355)

Index of Quranic Verses (395)

Index and Glossary of Names and Terms (401)

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