94 MOHAMMAD HASHIM KAMALI

on al-Subki’s writings, with certain modifications that were reflective, perhaps, of their respective scholastic orientations. At the beginning of every maxim that he discussed, Al-Suyuṭi identified the source evidence from which the maxim was derived and then added illustration and analysis. Al-Suyuṭi devoted the first chapter of his al-Ashbāh wa’l-Naẓā’ir to the five leading maxims, and the fiqhi issues to which they applied. Then he discussed, in the second chapter, forty other maxims of a more specific type that are derived from the first five. Another chapter in that work is devoted to a selection of the most useful and recurrent maxims in the works of fiqh, and yet another chapter discussed maxims on which the jurists were in disagreement. The next two chapters in al-Suyuṭi’s work put together clusters of maxims that related to one another, and those that resembled one another in some way. The last chapter added miscellaneous maxims that are not classified in any manner.³²

Some of the leading maxims that al-Suyuṭi recorded were: “private authority is stronger than public authority” (al-wilāya al-khāṣṣa aqwa min al-wilāya al-‘āmma),³³ which evidently means that the authority, for example, of the parent and guardian over the child is stronger than that of the ruler and the judge; another maxim thus declared “no speech is attributed to one who has remained silent” (lā-yunasb li’l-sākit qawl).³⁴ And, we read in yet another maxim “the attachment follows the principal” (al-tābi‘ tābi‘), which obviously means that, in reference, for example, to contracts and transactions, things which belong to one another may not be separated: one does not sell a yet-to-be born animal separately from its mother, or a living room separately from the house.³⁵

Ibn Nujaym divided the legal maxims into two categories of normative or leading maxims, and subsidiary maxims. He only placed six under the former, and nineteen under the latter, but discussed a number of other subsidiary rules and maxims of fiqh in his detailed elaboration and analysis. The sixth leading maxim of Ibn Nujaym that he added to the familiar five, as reviewed above, was that “no spiritual reward accrues without intention” (lā thawāb illā bi’l-niyya), which is why the ritual prayer, and most other acts of devotion, are preceded by a statement of intention, or niyya.³⁶ The introductory part of the Ottoman Mejelle, compiled