Madhhab as Law

By Yavuz Aykan This is the fourth essay in a series of four essays on "Why the Ottoman fiqh? Reading Ḥanafī jurisprudence in its historical longue durée." In my previous essay, I have … Continue reading Madhhab as Law

The Madhhab Administration in Kurdistan and the Banal Affair of a Kurdish Tribe

By Yavuz Aykan This is the second essay in a series of four essays on "Why the Ottoman fiqh? Reading Ḥanafī jurisprudence in its historical longue durée." Before revisiting the legal drama of … Continue reading The Madhhab Administration in Kurdistan and the Banal Affair of a Kurdish Tribe

Travelogues and Islamic Law: Vignettes from an Indian Ḥanafī Hajj Account, 1839

By Sohaib Baig In the previous two essays, I conducted collection-level analysis of a Turkish union catalog containing more than half a million records to explore the textual landscapes of … Continue reading Travelogues and Islamic Law: Vignettes from an Indian Ḥanafī Hajj Account, 1839

Islamic Law in the News Roundup

ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS "A Quran burning and a string of requests to approve protests involving the destruction of more holy books have left Sweden torn between its commitment … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup

Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law In "A Short History of Zaydi fiqh" (Leiden Arabic Humanities Blog, April 15, 2023), Eirik Hovden and Ebrahim Mansoor (Leiden University) provide a brief overview … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup

Islamic Law in the News Roundup

ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS "US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that 'when the Taliban enacted restrictive bans on higher education for women, governments from across the Muslim world … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup

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" … 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 … Continue reading The Challenge of Absence: Writing a History of Salafī practice

Terminological Tensions

By Guy Burak [Muḥammad al-Timurtāshī] said in Minaḥ al-Ghaffār: “the sijill is the document (ḥujja) where the verdict (ḥukm) of the judge [is written].” But this is in their custom … Continue reading Terminological Tensions

Narrating Change

By Guy Burak The increasingly systematic study of Ottoman Islam – or, perhaps, Islam in the Ottoman Empire – is arguably one of the greatest historiographical developments in Islamic studies … Continue reading Narrating Change