First Paragraph: The present book, a revised version of the author’s doctoral thesis at Princeton University, presents a new study of the history of the Ẓāhirī madhhab of Islamic law. In Part I, the author gathers all available information on the scholars who have been counted as adherents of the Ẓāhirī school beginning with the founder Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī al-Iṣbahānī (d. 270/884) to the latest recorded representative in the 10th/16th century.