¹ I do not exclude the possibility that some legal maxims may be older than the second century A.H., or may even go back to the pre-Islamic period, but this cannot be assumed but must be positively proved in each case, as R. Brunschvig has done for the maxim al-walā' lil-kubr (in Revue Historique de Droit Français et Étranger, 1950, 23-34).