Ask Shamela Classical Islamic research

Complete Shamela corpus

Research the classical Islamic tradition — with citations.

Ask a question in your own language. Ask Shamela retrieves passages from the complete Shamela corpus and answers with the author, book, Hijri death year, and page for every claim. Where the scholars differ, it presents the positions side by side.

اسأل بلغتك، واحصل على إجابةٍ موثّقة بالمصادر.

  • Complete Shamela corpus
  • Author · book · page citations
  • Ask in any language
  • Private · no ads
  • Multiple scholarly positions

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Grounded by design

Ask Shamela is built to show its work: every answer is drawn from the texts themselves, with its sources in plain view.

Answers from the texts

Every answer is drawn from passages in the complete Shamela corpus, never from guesswork.

Citations you can check

Each claim carries the author, book title, Hijri death year, and page, so you can verify it against the cited source yourself.

Positions side by side

Where the scholars disagree, the answer lays out the positions rather than silently choosing one for you.

What an answer looks like

An illustrative citation in the format every answer follows. Ask in any language; the quoted sources remain in their original Arabic.

Sample outputCitation format

«إِنَّمَا الأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ، وَإِنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مَا نَوَى»
Author
al-Bukhari
Book
al-Jamiʿ al-Sahih
Died
256 AH
Reference
Kitab Badʾ al-Wahy, no. 1

Illustrative example of the citation format. Ask Shamela cites the exact retrieved edition and page for each passage.

  1. How did the four Sunni schools debate combining prayers (jamʿ) due to illness or hardship?
  2. What are the conditions of valid khulʿ (wife-initiated divorce) across the classical madhhabs?
  3. How do classical lexicons and jurists define gharar (excessive uncertainty) in sales?

Built to be trusted

Clear policies, a working support contact, and no hidden trade-offs.

Grounded, not “unbiased.”

The Shamela library is overwhelmingly Sunni classical scholarship. No tool can make a corpus viewpoint-free. Ask Shamela does not hide that — it shows the source behind every claim and presents differences where the sources differ.

Your questions and saved research sessions are tied to your account, and you can delete them at any time. We never sell your data or show ads. The Privacy Policy explains what is collected and why.