Sharīʿa, Custom, and Modern Legal Reform

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By Ayman Shabana In the Islamic juristic tradition, the relationship between sharīʿa and custom raised important methodological questions, ranging from: the nature and number of sources, formulation of rulings, guidelines for the understanding and interpretation of the scriptural texts, and implementation and application of legal rules particularly in novel cases requiring independent reasoning. In general, … Continue reading Sharīʿa, Custom, and Modern Legal Reform

Two Supercommentaries

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By Mahmood Kooria The Qurra-Fatḥ was received well among the Shāfiʿī Muslims, especially in the nineteenth century—a period of multiple syntheses for Shāfiʿīsm in terms of its geographical, intellectual, and cultural realms. To highlight the ruptures in the long commentarial traditions of the school, in this last blogpost I focus on two works, both of … Continue reading Two Supercommentaries

An Autocommentary

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By Mahmood Kooria By the sixteenth century the Muslim communities on the Indian Ocean littoral were participating intensively in Islamic intellectual networks, producing many jurists and composing many texts. They made lengthy journeys to religious educational centers such as Mecca, and this had a significant impact on the production of a huge corpus of literature … Continue reading An Autocommentary

A Commentary

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By Mahmood Kooria The most renowned commentary of the Minhāj is Tuḥfat al-muḥtāj written by Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (1504-1567), an Egyptian scholar who built up a successful career in Mecca. This commentary, too, represents the internal dynamics of the discursive traditions within the Shāfiʿī school as well as its historical trajectories expanding to unprecedented lands. … Continue reading A Commentary

A Code

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By Mahmood Kooria The Minhāj al-ṭālibīn of Yaḥyā al-Nawawī (1233-1277) is the text that codified Shāfiʿī school of Islamic law. No other text has attracted as many commentators from within the school in such a wide range of ages and places. Nawawī’s Minhāj is an abridgement of the Muḥarrar by the Persian jurist ʿAbd al-Karīm … Continue reading A Code

Monthly Lectures on Islamic Legal Genres: “Genre as a Tool for Understanding Islamic Law” by Prof. Mohammad Fadel

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By Omar Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar This is a summary of the lecture by Prof. Mohammad Fadel entitled "Form, Function and Historical Development of Mukthasars in Post-Mamluk Islamic Law," delivered on February 24, 2021 at 11am (EST), 5pm (Münster) 7pm (Istanbul) via Zoom. Professor Fadel’s lecture described the history, purpose, and nature of late medieval Mālikī mukhtaṣars. … Continue reading Monthly Lectures on Islamic Legal Genres: “Genre as a Tool for Understanding Islamic Law” by Prof. Mohammad Fadel

Islamic Legal Canons as Memes

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By Intisar Rabb This essay is part of the Islamic Law Blog’s Roundtable on Islamic Legal History & Historiography, edited by Intisar Rabb (Editor-in-Chief) and Mariam Sheibani (Lead Blog Editor), and introduced with a list of further readings in a short post, also by Intisar Rabb: “Methods and Meaning in Islamic Law: Introduction." Introduction* We’ve all … Continue reading Islamic Legal Canons as Memes

The continuum approach: Multiple legal solutions to run a diverse empire

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By Petra Sijpesteijn (Leiden University) This essay is part of the Islamic Law Blog’s Roundtable on Islamic Legal History & Historiography, edited by Intisar Rabb (Editor-in-Chief) and Mariam Sheibani (Lead Blog Editor), and introduced with a list of further readings in the short post by Intisar Rabb: “Methods and Meaning in Islamic Law: Introduction." Two … Continue reading The continuum approach: Multiple legal solutions to run a diverse empire

Weekend Scholarship Roundup

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In "Innovation, Influence, and Borrowing in Mamluk-Era Legal Maxim Collections: The Case of Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām and al-Qarāfī" (Journal of the American Oriental Society 140, no. 4 (October-December 2020)), Mariam Sheibani (University of Toronto Scarborough; Lead Blog Editor) shows that the renowned Mālikī jurist al-Qarāfī's contribution to Islamic legal thought was, in part, based on … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup

Future Avenues in the Study of Islamic Law

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By Najam Haider (Barnard College) This essay is part of the Islamic Law Blog’s Roundtable on Islamic Legal History & Historiography, edited by Intisar Rabb (Editor-in-Chief) and Mariam Sheibani (Lead Blog Editor), and introduced with a list of further readings in the short post by Intisar Rabb: “Methods and Meaning in Islamic Law: Introduction." I should … Continue reading Future Avenues in the Study of Islamic Law