By Haroun Rahimi Are the Taliban modern? The answer to this question depends on what we mean by “modernity” and how we define the Taliban, neither of which is easy … Continue reading Islamic Law, the Taliban, and the Modern State
By Aaron Rock-Singer In previous essays, I have laid out key opportunities and challenges in using media sources to tell an intellectual and social history of Islamic law, with a … Continue reading Audio and Audio-Visual Sources and Pathways Forward
The right to abortion has made headlines in the United States because of a leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization written by Justice Samuel Alito of … Continue reading Resource Roundup: Abortion and Islamic Law
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 … Continue reading When Worship Meets Taxation: Socio-Political Reflections on the Rules of Zakat
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 … Continue reading Imploring God and the “Living Tradition”: A Relative Chronology of Epigraphic and Traditional Invocations
By Mathieu Tillier This is part one in a series of four posts on the historical formation of the Sunna, with a focus on methodological reflections on the emergence of … Continue reading Early Fiqh and the Issue of Ḥadīth Dating
By Junaid Quadri How shall we understand the encounter between the sharīʿa and the colonial modern? What have been the responses of Muslim jurists to the twin pressures of colonialism … Continue reading Excavating the Colonial Modern in Islamic Law
By Junaid Quadri* How precisely to understand the ethical material found within works of fiqh has been a recurrent question of Western scholarship on Islamic law since its earliest period. … Continue reading Ethical Perfectionism in Fiqh: The Example of Moral Exemplars
By Junaid Quadri* In On Human Conduct, the ambitious work he produced toward the end of his career, the philosopher Michael Oakeshott offers a distinction between two kinds of storytelling … Continue reading Oakeshott, Originalism and the History of Modern Islamic Law
By Issam Eido This is part two in a series of four posts on Ḥanafī criteria for using ḥadīth in the ‘courts and canons’ of early Islamic law. There are … Continue reading Early Ḥanafī Jurists, Court Practice, and the Authority of General Afflictions (ʿUmūm al-Balwā)
