The Sunni schools of law are named for jurisprudents of the eighth and ninth centuries, but they did not actually function so early. The main division at that time was rather between adherents of ra'y and ḥadīth. No school had a regular means of forming students. Relying mainly on biographical dictionaries, this study traces the constitutive elements of the classical schools and finds that they first came together in the early tenth century, particularly with the work of Ibn Surayj (d. 306/918), al-Khallāl (d. 311/923), and a series of ḥanafī teachers...

Christopher Melchert proposes to historicize Islamic renunciant piety (zuhd). As the conquest period wound down in the early eighth century c.e., renunciants set out to maintain the contempt of worldly comfort and loyalty to a greater cause that had characterized the community of Muslims in the seventh century. Instead of reckless endangerment on the battlefield, they cultivated intense fear of the Last Judgement to come. They spent nights weeping, reciting the Qur’an, and performing supererogatory ritual prayers. They stressed other-worldliness to the extent of minimizing good works in...

Scholars from Europe, the Middle East and North America explore medieval and modern approaches to the study of HadithExamining and exemplifying the latest methods and trends in Hadith Studies, this book treats scholarship from the early Middle Ages to the 21st century. It looks at how hadiths were transmitted and organised by Muslim scholars to give us the collections we use today, and how hadiths were used to define the life of pietyas well as to tell us the revealed law. Some chapters seek to overturn, refine or reaffirm dominant paradigms within the field. Others look to expand our...