Major Topics: Prayer Conduct, Social Ethics, and the Virtues of Character

Al-Adab ash-Shar'iyyah covers an enormous range of topics, but several sections stand out for their comprehensiveness and their importance to daily Muslim life. Among these are the extensive treatments of prayer conduct, social etiquette, scholarly behavior, and the virtues and vices of the inner life.

The sections on prayer conduct are among the most detailed in the Islamic literature on salah. Ibn Muflih goes beyond the basic legal requirements of prayer to address every aspect of how the believer should approach, perform, and complete his acts of worship. This includes the etiquette of entering the masjid, the conduct of the imam and the congregation, the proper way to perform supererogatory prayers, and the recommended acts of worship and supplications associated with different times of the day. The treatment is comprehensive enough to serve as a practical guide for a Muslim seeking to perfect the outer form of his worship, alongside the inner qualities that give worship its spiritual substance.

The social ethics sections cover the proper conduct for relationships of every kind: between spouses, between parents and children, between neighbors, between scholars and their students, and between Muslims in general. Ibn Muflih's treatment of the rights of neighbors is particularly notable — he gathers an extensive collection of prophetic narrations on this topic and the statements of scholars across the schools, providing one of the most complete treatments in Islamic literature of what it means to fulfill the rights of those who live nearby.

The sections on scholarly conduct reflect Ibn Muflih's deep investment in the ethics of Islamic education. He addresses how scholars should conduct themselves in teaching, in writing, in debate, and in their personal lives. He draws on hadith about the responsibilities of knowledge and the dangers of scholars who fail to live what they teach, providing a compelling picture of what Islamic scholarship at its best looks like.

The treatment of virtues and vices in the inner life — including chapters on truthfulness, generosity, courage, justice, and their opposites — makes Al-Adab ash-Shar'iyyah a work of spiritual ethics as well as practical conduct. Ibn Muflih consistently shows how the outer conduct described in the book's earlier sections is connected to the inner character that the Muslim is called to cultivate.