Hadiths on Commercial Law, Marriage, and Criminal Justice

The later sections of Sunan ad-Daraqutni address commercial law, family law, and criminal justice — areas where the schools of fiqh had developed significantly different positions and where the hadith evidence was correspondingly contested. Ad-Daraqutni's collection is particularly valuable here because it compiles not just the strongest narrations but all the narrations used in these legal debates.

In commercial law, the hadiths on the permissibility of various types of sale — forward sales, deferred payment sales, sales of indeterminate quantities — received different treatment from different schools. Ad-Daraqutni presents the full range of relevant narrations, often noting when a narration supports the Hanafi position but has a weak chain, or when a narration supports the Shafi'i position and has a strong chain. This information is directly useful for a legal scholar trying to determine which positions are most strongly supported by the hadith evidence.

The hadiths on marriage include contested questions about the guardian requirement, the minimum dower, and the conditions for valid divorce. Ad-Daraqutni's treatment of the hadiths about the guardian's role in marriage — one of the most contested issues between the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools — is extensive and includes all the major narrations with chain analysis.

For criminal law, the Sunan contains hadiths on the conditions for the hadd punishments — the evidentiary requirements, the categories of persons subject to the penalties, and the procedure for applying them. Ad-Daraqutni includes hadiths used by different schools to support their distinctive positions, along with his assessments of the relative strength of the different chains.

The sections on inheritance law contain hadiths that were used to resolve disputed questions about the shares of various heirs — particularly in cases involving maternal grandmothers, paternal relatives, or mixed situations not explicitly addressed by the Quranic verses on inheritance. Ad-Daraqutni's collection in this area preserves hadiths that are sometimes found only in his Sunan and are therefore of particular research value.