This book presents a critical edition of the twelfth/eighteenth century manuscript on the subject of legal maxims 'Umdat al-N%azir 'al%a al-Ashb%ah wa'l-Naz%a'ir'. It was composed by a distinguished Hanifite jurist Ab%u 'l-Su'%ud al-Husayn and is a commentary on an earlier seminal text al-Ashb%ah wa'l-Naz%a'ir' authored by Ibn Nujaym in the tenth/sixteenth century. The volume is divided into three main parts the first of which provides an historical and theoretical introduction to the genre of al-qaw%a'id al-fiqhiyyah (legal maxims). The second part introduces the two texts and their authors, discusses their literary legacy within the Hanaf%i School of law and covers issues of editing, authenticity and provenance. Finally, the third part of the book consists of four edited chapters of the 'Umdat al-N%azir 'al%a al-Ashb%ah wa'l-Naz%a'ir'. The first of these is the author's introduction to his work followed by three chapters, one for each of the first three qaw%a'id. The work is important as a commentary on one of the most significant legal texts which revived interest in the subject within the Hanafi School of law after a stagnation period of five centuries. It is also the most copious of all the forty-four commentaries on Ibn Nujaym's book and it is a combination of the commentaries of at least three well known Hanafite scholars. Because Ab%u'l-Su'%ud synthesizes the most authoritative opinions from these commentaries, 'Umdat al-N%azir serves as a definitive summation of the discourse on legal maxims within the school.