OTTOMAN EMPIRE, DATED DHU'L-HIJJA AH 1104/AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1693 AD

Shaykh ‘Abd al-Wahhab bin Ahmad al-Sha’rani was a prolific and important scholar and historian of Sufism of Ottoman Egypt. The present work comprises a treatise aiming to reassert the essential unity of the four madhahib by arguing that their precepts were derived from the same Source of Law (‘ayn al-shari’a). The title is indicative of al-Sha’rani’s own moderately ascetic and non-political practise of Sufism. He remained highly critical of scholars who troubled the wider population with the finer legal and theological arguments which, in his opinion, had little relevance to the essentials of Islam (M. Winter, 'Al-Sha'rani' in Bosworth et al. (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 9, Leiden, 1960-2002, p.316). Another copy of this work was sold at Christie’s, South Kensington, 28 April 2017, lot 174.