Acknowledgements

As I mention in the book, by the grace of the Almighty, I have been fortunate enough to receive two forms of education. I completed a traditional seminary (hawza) programme at Al-Mahdi Institute in Birmingham, UK, and I also undertook my postgraduate studies at the University of Warwick.

It would not have been possible for me to embark on this project without the unwavering support and assistance that was provided to me at Al-Mahdi Institute. I am indebted to all my teachers and colleagues, both for encourag­ing me and for equipping me with the skillset required to understand classi­cal Arabic seminary texts. I am exceptionally grateful to my uncle and mentor, Shaykh Arif Abdul Hussain, who spent numerous nights sitting by my side to teach me complicated excerpts from Kifayat al-usul and FaraCd al-usul. This endeavour would also have not been possible without the help and guidance I received from Professor Mohammad Ghari Seyed Fatemi, Dr Abolqasem Fanaei, and Dr Ali-Reza Bhojani. I would also like to acknowledge the librar­ians at Al-Mahdi Institute, Mohsen Najafi and Adam Ramadhan, for finding and providing me with access to rich resources. A special thanks to Mr Sajjad Ebrahim, for patiently bearing with me over the many years it took for this book to be published.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr David Stephen Powers for generously commenting on an article I submitted for publication in the jour­nal of Islamic Law and Society. If not for his meticulous feedback and sugges­tions, I would have struggled to develop this book.

Finally, I would like to thank my dear parents, my siblings, and my entire family and friends for providing me with love and space to work on this project (especially my late uncle Abba, who always encouraged me to think outside the box). A very big thanks to my wife Gagan, for thoroughly (and painstak­ingly) proofreading the entire book.