Abstract

Neşrü’l-arf fî binâi ba’di’l-ahkâmi ale’l-urf, written by Ibn Âbidîn in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, is one of the most important works that can be mentioned related to custom. After he had written Şerhu manzumeti Ukûdi Resmi’l-Müftî, which was written to explain his poetical work Ukûd-u resmi’l-müftî, he wrote this treatise due to necessity of explaining a matter of custom. Ibn Âbidîn deals with the position of custom against Zahiru’r-riwayah, which is accepted as a basis proof in the Hanafi-fatwa method with the other proofs. In addition, he draws attention to the decisive factor of custom in judging. The starting point of his opinion is the strong belief that the sect leaders will judge differently if they lived today, taking the society’s custom into consideration. We can say that Ibn Âbidîn proposed a formula that succeeded in incorporating Islam into modern life without touching the bases of the traditional understanding of sect.

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