In his work entitled al-Ashbāh wa-l-Naẓāʾir, Ibn Nujaym (d. 969/1563), examines similar historical legal cases and fatwas through collecting substantive legal canons and interpretive legal canons that “distinguish, explain, and guide varied outcomes in cases with seemingly similar facts.” As a principal work authored early in the Ottoman Era collecting legal canons in Ḥanafī law, Muslim jurists of many schools frequently reference his work. For example, drafters of the Ottoman Code of 1869, also known as the Mecelle, primarily relied on this work to select 99 legal canons to preface a new commercial code based on Ḥanafī law that would both modernize and reform Ottoman law based on traditional or classical Islamic legal norms, through reference to legal canons.
For more, view the full print edition or see Intisar Rabb, Doubt in Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press 2015) and “Experiments in Tracking Canons across the Mecelle” (Islamic Law Blog, March 16, 2022).