8vo. xv, 269 pp., Dutch text with an index of Arabic words at rear, contemporary cloth backed boards, top spine partly unhinged, occasional foxing, few pencil annotations & underlining, previous owner’s faint inscription on title page, Ernst & Co / M. Nijhoff, Batavia / Gravenhage, second revised edition, 1878.

Synopsis

Lodewijk Willem Christiaan van den Berg, van den Berg, was a Dutch oriental scholar in the Dutch colonial era famous with his research on Arab Indonesians of Hadhrami descent, which was the first detailed research of its kind in the world at the time. He studied at Leiden University, graduating in 1868 with a dissertation on Muslim property law. Soon afterwards, he left for the Indies where he held several clerical and judicial posts until, in 1878, he was given the prestigious, newly created, position of Official for the practice of “Indische” languages and Adviser for Eastern languages and Muslim law.
Van den Berg continued his exploration of Muslim law by publishing this work: [The Principles of the Mohammedan Law, according to the Imams Abu Hanifah and Shafi’i] in 1874. Second and third editions followed in 1878 and 1883. Van den Berg’s interest in the Arab communities of Java led him to complete an important work on this subject.