In Rethinking Islamic Legal Modernism Ron Shaham challenges the common opinion that Islamic legal modernism, as represented by Rashid Rida (d. 1935), is of poor intellectual quality and should not be considered an authentic development within Islamic law. The book focuses on the celebrated Sunni jurist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi (b. 1926), whom Shaham perceives as a close follower of Rida. By studying the coherence of Qaradawi's Wasati theory of ijtihad and the consistency of its application in his legal opinions (fatwas), Shaham argues that Qaradawi, by means of eclecticism and synthesis, conducts...

The study of the sharīʿa has enjoyed a renaissance in the last two decades and it will continue to attract interdisciplinary attention given the ongoing social, political and religious developments throughout the Muslim world. With such a variety of debates, and a corresponding multitude of theoretical methods, students and non-scholars are often overwhelmed by the complexity of the field. Even experts will often need to consult multiple sources to understand these new voices and provide accessible answers to specialist and non-specialist audiences alike. This volume is intended for both...

This book is dedicated to an analysis of seven groups of hadiths related to matters ranging from the rules concerning water used for ablution to those concerning the proof of facts in a qadi court. It has three main purposes. The first is to clarify the processes by which hadiths on a given topic were formed and developed by analyzing their isnāds and matns and by comparing them with expositions of positive law in legal manuals. Second, it seeks to explain why many hadiths exist in multiple variants and to detect the perception of traditionists about the revision of hadiths. The third...

Emphasising an empirical research to contemporary legal pluralist settings in Muslim contexts, the present collected volume contributes to a deepened understanding of legal pluralist issues and realities through comparative examination. This approach reveals some common features, such as the relevance of Islamic law in power struggles and in the construction of (state or national) identities, strategies of coping with coexisting sets of legal norms by the respective agents, or public debates about the risks induced by the recognition of religious institutions in migrant societies. At the same...

In Visions of Sharīʿa Bhojani, De Rooij and Bohlander present the first broad examination of ways in which legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) within Twelver Shīʿī thought continues to be a forum for vibrant debates regarding the assumptions, epistemology and hermeneutics of Sharīʿa in contemporary Shīʿī thought. Bringing together authoritative voices and emerging scholars, from both ‘traditional’ seminaries and ‘Western’ academies, the distinct critical insider and emic accounts provided develop a novel avenue in Islamic legal studies. Contextualised through reference to the...

In Shariʿa, Justice and Legal Order: Egyptian and Islamic Law: Selected Essays Rudolph Peters discusses in 35 articles practice of both Shariʿa and state law. The principal themes are legal order and the actual application of law both in the judiciaries as well in cultural and political debates. Many of the topics deal with penal law. Although the majority of studies are situated in the Ottoman and, especially, Egyptian period, few of them are of another region or a more recent period, such as in Nigeria or, also, Egypt. The book’s historical studies are mainly based on archival judicial...