Muʿāmalāt (transactions, sing. muʿāmala), refers primarily to those rules of Islamic law (fiqh) that govern the relationships of human beings to one another. The muʿāmalāt are frequently contrasted with the ʿibādāt, which are the rules that lay out specific obligations to serve God. The concept has roots in the premodern tradition, but its importance has grown greatly in modern times, with the explosion of rulemaking in the modern state. The reason is that when, in man…