This volume is unique as a collection of studies devoted entirely to topics and issues in the field of Islamic legal theory and authored by fourteen scholars known for their work in this field. The studies deal with such topics as early notions of charismatic authority, hermeneutic techniques in Shāfiʿī's Risālah, uses of the term sunnah in the ninth century A.H., evidence for the emergence of usūl al-fiqh as a genre of legal literature in the ninth century, the function of usūl al-fiqh in relation to legal practice, theological...

The cumulative implications for Africans of the neoliberal processes (market speculation, shifts in sites of production, new modes of consumption, redefinition of the relation between states and their citizenry) cannot be reduced to single parameters. Three themes are central: the neoliberal production of personhood, the crises of youth and the moral panic in which so many of the wider reforms are registered in experience. With contributions on marriage payments, Muslim saints, popular theatre, homosexuality, ritual haunts, domestic reproduction, masculine fantasy, poetic justice, spirit...

Bioinformatics is emerging as a field with ever-increasing promise, ur gency, and necessity. All three of these facets can be seen in the con text of the recent sequencing of the human genome. The creation of a novel algorithm for the assembly of whole genome shotgun data sets accelerated the project and resulted in its near completion in 2001. The urgency became apparent with the landslide of data that ensued and the realization that current databases and tool sets are not up to the task. Finally, the necessity of bioinformatics as a facet of molecular biologi cal research becomes evident in...