About the Text
This text was composed during the period when Shehu Uthman ibn Fuduye` was in Sifawa, between the years 1810 to 1815. This period was reportedly the most explosive time for the Shehu intellectually and spiritually. He composed his most forward thinking and revolutionary ideas during this period. The Fat’hual-Basaa’ir is a complete mapping of Islamic epistemology. It is an assessment of the exoteric and esoteric sciences in Islam composed in ten chapters: I. On the Reality of the Divisions of the Muslims With Regard to Their Ranks in Insight in the Deen. II. On the Reality of Outward Iman and Inward Iman. III. On the Reality of the Proper Place of the Legal Judgement for the Sciences of the Religion which are Tawheed, Fiqh, and Tassawwuf. IV. On the Reality of What is Fard’l-Ayaan and What is Fard’l-Kifaaya From These Sciences of the Deen. V. On the Reality of the Domain of Truth. VI. On the Reality of the Domain of Falsehood VII. On the Reality of the Domain of Supposition. VIII. On the Reality of the Totality of the Teachings of the Scholars and Their Legal Judgement. IX. On the Reality that All the Individual Responsibilities Were Completed During the Time of the Messenger, (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). X. On the Reality that the Different Opinions of a Legal Judgement in One Thing is Due to the Difference of the Procedures Concerning It.