Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law In "The Method in Understanding Hadith Through Ijmā' and Its Implications for Islamic Law in Indonesia: Studies on the Hadiths of the Month of Qamariyah" (Samarah 7, no. 1 (2023)), Abdul Majid (Universitas Islam Negeri Sultan Aji Muhammad Idris, Samarinda) and others investigate how the meaning of certain Prophetic teaching … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup

The Challenge of Absence: Writing a History of Salafī practice

By Aaron Rock-Singer In the previous essay, I argued that periodicals constitute a vital source for reconstructing the process by which particular legal rulings emerge as authoritative, as well as for tracing the extra-legal factors that drive such developments. In this essay, I continue to explore periodicals as a source of Islamic law by examining … Continue reading The Challenge of Absence: Writing a History of Salafī practice

Uncommon Common Sense: What We May Never Know About Mutʿa Marriage

By Rami Koujah This post is part of a series of posts on the latest publication in our Harvard Series in Islamic Law, Hossein Modarressi’s Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law. This series of posts take a deeper dive into the book, which examines the main characteristics of the … Continue reading Uncommon Common Sense: What We May Never Know About Mutʿa Marriage

An Excerpt from Text and Interpretation on Mutʿa Marriage

By Hossein Modarressi Edited and summarized by Rami Koujah This post is part of a series of posts on the latest publication in our Harvard Series in Islamic Law, Hossein Modarressi’s Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law. This series of posts take a deeper dive into the book, which … Continue reading An Excerpt from Text and Interpretation on Mutʿa Marriage

16 Reasons Why: Forgery and the Household of the Prophet

By Rami Koujah This post is part of a series of posts on the latest publication in our Harvard Series in Islamic Law, Hossein Modarressi’s Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law. This series of posts take a deeper dive into the book, which examines the main characteristics of the … Continue reading 16 Reasons Why: Forgery and the Household of the Prophet

Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law: In "Judicial Crisis in Damascus on the Eve of Baybars’s Reform: The Case of the Minor Orphan Girl (651–55/1253–57)" (Islamic Law and Society (March 23, 2022)), Mariam Sheibani (The University of Toronto Scarborough) "reconstructs a late-Ayyubid court case in Damascus that was litigated repeatedly between 651/1253 and 655/1257, five years … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup

Back to the Isnād: The Prophetization of the Sunna

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

From Anonymous Dicta to the Prophet’s 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

Imploring God and the “Living Tradition”: A Relative Chronology of Epigraphic and Traditional Invocations

By Mathieu Tillier This is part two 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. Stating that the sunna of the Prophet represents a major source of classical Islamic law may appear as self-evident. Many legal rulings are … Continue reading Imploring God and the “Living Tradition”: A Relative Chronology of Epigraphic and Traditional Invocations

Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law: Taliban: The Power of Militant Islam in Afghanistan and Beyond (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022) by Ahmed Rashid investigates the origins and development of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. For more content and context on the recent developments in Afghanistan, consult our Editor-in-Chief, Professor Intisar Rabb's "Resource Roundup: Afghanistan, the Taliban, and … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup