This Law of Ours

"This Law of Ours" is a book written by Muhammad Asad, first published by the Asiatic Press of Dacca in June 1980, and later reprinted and expanded by Dar al-Andalus, Gibraltar in 1987 as "This Law of Ours and Other Essays". The book is a collection of Asad's writings -- some written as far back as the 1940s -- which aims to clarify some of the confusion in the Muslim Ummah about the scope and practical implications of Islamic law.

The book's preface was written by Pola Hamida, Asad's wife, who first gathered his writings and radio talks and persuaded him to publish a book. In the preface, Hamida points out that the reader will be struck "not only by the extraordinary timeliness and timelessness of these thoughts and predictions, but also by their great consistency."

Contents

The essays contained in the book represent Asad's work and thought from the mid-1940s to 1987. The following essays are included:

# An Imaginary Conversation.
# Codification of Islamic Law.
# And Our Future.
# Islamic Law and Muslim Law.
# A Voice of Nine Hundred Years Ago.
# Is There Another Way? Asad points out what is incumbent on a Muslim: namely, belief in the "Oneness of God" — indivisible in His existence, unattainable by human thought, all-embracing in His wisdom and power — and in the apostleship of Muhammad.

A large portion of the book elaborates on Islamic and western civilization and Muslim law. In particular, it deals with the role of ijtihad and the creative outlook of Muhammad's companions and the great jurists of the past, on the necessity for independent thinking grounded in the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Muhammad. It also contains the author's perspective on the ideological basis of Pakistan as well as on Islam's encounter with the west.