The fifth/eleventh al-Aḥkām al-Kubra, represents a new and unique legal genre for Islamic criminal justice. The treatise serves as an early example of nawāzil literature composed in al-Andalus made up of a combination of reports on legal cases coupled with the opinions and judgements of jurists and magistrates associated with it. These nawāzil also include criminal cases under the jurisdiction of the shurṭa. Ibn Sahl (d. 486/1093), a jurist living in Cordoba under the Jahwarids (r. 422– 461/1031–1069) and author of al-Aḥkām al-Kubra discusses actual crimes cases which occurred in Cordoba, and portrays the shurṭa working with jurists to arrive at a judgment. This detailed portrayal of jurists being involved in the realities of criminal justice is a distinctive element of this text. The case presented in this text is a murder of a man, allegedly perpetrated by his family, and the complex social-legal challenges of prosecuting such a case.
The source is edited by Yaḥya Murād in Abū al-Aṣbagh ʿĪsā b. Sahl, Kitab al-Nawāzil al-aʻlām al-musamma Dīwān al-aḥkām al-kubrál. Cairo: Dār al-Hadith, 2007. Scans of this case have been made available.