Sharia Its Substance and Significance By Muhammad Abdur-Rahim Dalvi. 1994, 280 pp.

Abstract

This book is a good analysis of the Shafi'i school of Islamic law,
and the author is to be commended for his successful presentation of its
salient features to the English-reading public. He has divided his book
into an introduction to the school, the law of marriage and divorce, the
law of property and related matters, the law of evidence and procedural
matters, and the law of crimes and criminal procedure. In addition to
these major topics, Dalvi deals with various lesser known features, such
as:

1. On the issue of marriage and divorce, Dalvi points out: "By stress­ing the need to establish the intention behind divorce, making such causes as inability to maintain a cause for the wife to ask for a divorce, making redundant divorce pronouncement under the influence of drink, indicating the necessity to know one another prior to the marriage, choosing of wit­nesses agreeable to the wife, stressing the responsibility of the husband to provide for maintenance to the divorced wife ... all go to show how seri­ous concern was in the mind of Imam Shafi'i for the protection of the rights of the women." (p. 240)
2. "The Shafi'i School holds that it is forbidden to [hold] court-sittings in a mosque" (p. 154). The author states that "the mosque being the 'House of God,' it was felt that if by any chance a judge delivered a judgment which has resulted in any injustice unknowingly too, it would not be behoving with God's desire to meet justice. Hence the mosque was not made a house of law." (p. 154) ...