This brief handbook on Islamic inheritance law (ʿilm al-farāʾiḍ(علم الفرائض),
the 'science of shares') exists in a unique manuscript. Examined and edited by Şinasi Tekin,
the work is a Turkish translation produced in 743. The compiler of the work states in the introduction that he devised the work from a Persian
work on inheritance law by Ḫoca Imām, i.e. Abū’l-Layth (ابو الليث نصر بن ابراهيم السمرقندي), for those far from urban centers and were
not able to consult imāms and jurists regarding the dispersal of inheritance. Tekin believes
that the attribution to the Hanafi theologian and jurist Abū’l-Layth Naṣr b. Ibrāhīm al-Samarqandī’s (d. 373/983) (ابو الليث نصر بن ابراهيم السمرقندي)
work is probably spurious since there is no evidence of such a work, either in Persian or Arabic. The Anatolian Turkish in which the text is
written reveals traces of Eastern Turkic elements, referred to as ‘olġa bolġa’ grammatical features.
Tekin deduces that
Faḳih Yaḳut Arslan
was an immigrant from the east who settled in an Oğuz-speaking community in Anatolia.
. The work place of composition is Anatolia.
