Please welcome our new Lead Blog Editor, Raha Rafii! Raha Rafii is currently an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, where she was previously a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow on the Law and Learning in Imami Shi‘i Islam ERC project. She received her PhD in 2019 from … Continue reading Welcome to our Lead Blog Editor, Raha Rafii!
By Sohail Hanif We continue our reflection on social dimensions of Islamic law by turning our attention to the rules of Zakat,[1] the obligatory alms in Islam. Zakat is a social institution, as it represents wealth moving from the ‘rich’ to the ‘poor’. By its very nature, Zakat creates social ties and dependencies. From the … Continue reading When Worship Meets Taxation: Socio-Political Reflections on the Rules of Zakat
By Sohail Hanif Ritual prayer (ṣalāh) is a pillar of Islam. It functions as a pillar that upholds the daily routine and spiritual journey of a believer. However, the spiritual dimension of prayer is not a topic of investigation in works of Islamic law. There is, on the other hand, another overarching interest of Muslim … Continue reading A Prayer-Based Civilizational Order: The Social Dimension of the Rules of Ritual Prayer
By Sohail Hanif My research has centred on unpacking layers of argumentation in works of Islamic law, particularly legal commentaries. As one unpacks these layers, one comes to learn that what actually is ‘law’ is not always clear, and that it is within the arguments that one finds the principles and reasoning for the sake … Continue reading Social Dependencies of Islamic Law: A View Through the Legal Commentary
Sohail Hanif is Chief Executive of National Zakat Foundation and Associated Lecturer at Cambridge Muslim College. He previously served as BA Manager at Cambridge Muslim College. He won the 2019 BRAIS-De Gruyter prize for his DPhil dissertation entitled ‘A Theory of Early Classical Ḥanafism: Authority, Rationality and Tradition in the Hidāyah of Burhān al-Dīn ‘Alī … Continue reading Welcome to our March Guest Blogger: Sohail Hanif
By Nahed Samour Bureaucratization demands regular activities and official duties. These duties are a central aspect of a bureaucratically governed structure. Regularity is important particularly in the application and adjudication of the law so as to minimize arbitrariness.[1] Regularity can create transparency, accessibility, and accountability, and thereby add to adjudicative authority within a bureaucratically established … Continue reading Adjudication as Official Duty: Regular Activities in a Bureaucratically Governed Structure
By Nahed Samour Surely, Max Weber was wrong with his assumptions about Kadi-Justice (kadijustiz).[1] He is rightly criticized as a modernization theorist, placing a protestant work ethics at the centre of progress in the modern West, which was picked up to explain a “global envy” of the West and an obsession to imitate it, encouraging … Continue reading Judicial Bureaucracy: Revisiting Modern Theory for the Study of Islamic Law
Nahed Samour is Fellow at the Law & Society Institute at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Faculty of Law where she is currently working on her habilitation. She researches and writes on Islamic law, German constitutional law and public international law. In her work on early Islamic adjudication, she has published Samour, “A Critique of Adjudication: … Continue reading Welcome to our February Guest Blogger: Nahed Samour
By Mathieu Tillier This is part four in a series of four posts on the historical formation of the Sunna, with a focus on methodological reflections on the emergence of Prophetic authority. In the first three posts in this series on the historical formation of the Sunna, I have argued that it is possible to … Continue reading Back to the Isnād: The Prophetization of the Sunna
By Mathieu Tillier This is part three in a series of four posts on the historical formation of the Sunna, with a focus on methodological reflections on the emergence of Prophetic authority. The history of Islamic law and that of ḥadīth are closely connected. As I recalled in my previous posts, prophetic authority as expressed … Continue reading From Anonymous Dicta to the Prophet’s Sunna
