Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law

ISBN-13: 9780521803311 / Angielski / Twarda / 2001 / 284 str.

Wael B. Hallaq

Opis

In this path-breaking new book, the author shows how authority guaranteed both continuity and change in Islamic law. Hallaq demonstrates that it was the construction of the absolutist authority of the school founder, an image which he suggests was actually developed later in history, that maintained the foundations of school methodology and hermeneutics. The defense of that methodology gave rise to an infinite variety of individual legal opinions, ultimately accomodating changes in the law. Thus the author concludes that the mechanisms of change were embedded in the very structure of Islamic law, despite its essentially conservative nature.

Spis treści

1. Juristic typologies: a framework for enquiry; 2. Early ijtihad and the later construction of authority; 3. The rise and augmentation of school authority; 4. Taqlid: authority, hermeneutics and function; 5. Operative terminology and the dynamics of legal doctrine; 6. The jurisconsult, the author-jurist and legal change; Summary and conclusions.