Nawazil Fiqhiyya Mu'asira (2 Volume Set) نوازل فقهية معاصرة

Nawazil Fiqhiyya Muʿasira (Contemporary Jurisprudential Issues) [نوازل فقهية معاصرة] is an authoritative two-volume work by the eminent Indian jurist and scholar Shaykh Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, General Secretary of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and founder of the Islamic Fiqh Academy (India).

Originally written in Urdu as Jadid Fiqhi Masail (جدید فقہی مسائل), the work was translated into Arabic by Dr. Muhammad Shajahan Nadvi. Its Arabic edition includes an introductory endorsement by the renowned Syrian jurist Dr. Wahba al-Zuhaili (d. 1436 AH / 2015 CE), who encouraged its publication in Arabic so that its scholarship could reach readers throughout the Arab and wider Muslim world.

Scope and Themes

Nawazil (singular: nazilah) refers to new and unprecedented issues requiring fresh juristic analysis. Shaykh Rahmani addresses contemporary questions through ijtihad, takhrij, and qiyas, primarily within the Hanafi tradition while also drawing on comparative Sunni jurisprudence.

The work covers a broad range of contemporary issues, including:

• Finance and business: banking, credit cards, paper currency, inflation, stocks, bonds, insurance, Islamic finance, franchising, multi-level marketing, intellectual property, and copyright.
• Medicine and bioethics: organ transplantation, IVF, artificial insemination, surrogacy, brain death, life support, autopsies, cloning, stem-cell research, and genetic engineering.
• Family and social issues: modern marriage contracts, marriages conducted through modern communication technologies, divorce, court-mandated dissolution, and issues affecting Muslims living as minorities.
• Worship and daily life: prayer and fasting during air travel and in high-latitude regions, mechanical slaughter, stunning, gelatin, and alcohol-derived substances in food and medicine.

Scholarly Methodology

Shaykh Rahmani grounds contemporary rulings in the principles of classical jurisprudence and the authoritative works of earlier jurists, while carefully examining the realities of modern issues. He also draws upon the expertise of physicians, economists, scientists, and legal professionals in order to establish the precise nature of new phenomena before determining their legal rulings.

The work further considers maslahah (public interest), taysir (facilitation), and rafʿ al-haraj (removal of undue hardship), particularly in addressing the complex circumstances faced by Muslims in contemporary and minority contexts.

This two-volume Arabic edition is an important contribution to the literature of contemporary Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh al-nawazil), bringing the rich juristic scholarship of the Indian Subcontinent into dialogue with the wider Muslim scholarly tradition. It will be especially valuable to researchers, muftis, students, and anyone seeking informed Islamic perspectives on modern legal, financial, medical, and social questions.