The Ottoman History Podcast Project brought together both established and emerging scholars to provide insights into a simply worded, yet perennial question, “What is Islamic Law?” – the first episode narrated by Chris Gratien in what is to become a series of episodes under the title “The Making of the Islamic World,” “aimed at providing resources for the undergraduate classroom.”
The scholars who provided their answer to the question include Intisar Rabb (Harvard Law School; Editor-in-Chief, Islamic Law Blog), Fahad Bishara (University of Virginia), Joel Blecher (George Washington University), Saadia Yacoob (Williams College), and Joshua White (University of Virginia).
The episode, while recognizing the existence of a set of established sources, such as the Qur’ān and the ḥadīth, to explicate the legal tradition undergirding Islam, is predicated on an appreciation of “a millennium of interpretation and debate” that has generated and continues to generate countless layers of meaning.