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
::Roundtable:: History of Islamic International Law: “War and Peace in the Medieval Islamic World, 622–1453” by Suleiman A. Mourad
By Suleiman Mourad This post is part of the Roundtable on the History of Islamic International Law. It is a summary of Suleiman Mourad's contribution titled "War and Peace in the Medieval Islamic World, 622–1453" to volume eight of the Cambridge History of International Law series, co-edited by Intisar Rabb and Umut Özsu. The study … Continue reading ::Roundtable:: History of Islamic International Law: “War and Peace in the Medieval Islamic World, 622–1453” by Suleiman A. Mourad
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
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
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: Religious Freedom in the Global South (MDPI Books, 2021), edited by Waheeda Amien (University of Cape Town), brings together articles written by various scholars that investigate "religious freedom in the Global South including the impact of religious freedom on majority and minority religious communities, the relationship between religious freedom and … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
Thank you, Issam Eido!
Thank you, Issam Eido, for joining us as guest blog editor in November. In case you missed Prof. Eido's essays on Ḥanafī criteria for using ḥadīth in the ‘courts and canons’ of early Islamic law, here they are: Lived or Non-Lived Ḥadīth? Content vs. Narrator Criteria in Early Ḥanafī Law Early Ḥanafī Jurists, Court Practice, and … Continue reading Thank you, Issam Eido!
Tools for Interpreting Ḥadīth in Shaybānī’s Ḥujja
By Issam Eido This is part four in a series of four posts on Ḥanafī criteria for using ḥadīth in the ‘courts and canons’ of early Islamic law. Kitāb al-Ḥujja ʿalā Ahl al-Madīna is one of several books attributed to the judge Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī.[1] Early Ḥanafī biographical dictionaries used to classify early Ḥanafī … Continue reading Tools for Interpreting Ḥadīth in Shaybānī’s Ḥujja