Resuscitating the Sharīʿa in South Asia

By Ovamir Anjum “The divine laws primarily and essentially consider [human] conventions [rusūm], and they are what is discussed and referred to in the heavenly injunctions. There are causes due … Continue reading Resuscitating the Sharīʿa in South Asia

The Shape of Islamic History

By Ovamir Anjum How should one imagine the shape of Islamic history? What bearing does that have on the shape of Islam’s future? The West thought the future was Star … Continue reading The Shape of Islamic History

The Endangered Sharīʿa

By Ovamir Anjum Murder is afoot, and modernity stands accused. The victim is the Sharīʿa, and the autopsy is grim: temporal lacerations, institutional mutilations, a missing heart. Not merely a … Continue reading The Endangered Sharīʿa

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 "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

Riddles, Influence, and Borrowing from Rival Legal Schools

By Matthew L. Keegan How did scholars from different Sunnī legal schools respond to and interact with the scholarship of other schools? The answer to this question, of course, depends … Continue reading Riddles, Influence, and Borrowing from Rival Legal Schools

Why Study Islamic Legal Riddles?

By Matthew L. Keegan When I first came across a chapter on legal riddles in the Kitāb al-Ashbāh wa’l-Naẓāʾir of Ibn Nujaym (d. 970/1563) in graduate school, I was immediately … Continue reading Why Study Islamic Legal Riddles?