The Akhbārī School dominated the intellectual landscape of Imāmī Shiʿism between the Seventeenth and early Nineteenth Centuries. Its principal doctrines involved a reliance on scripture (primarily the sayings or akhbār of the Shiʿite Imams) and a rejection of the rational exegetical techniques which had become orthodox doctrine in Imāmī theology and law. However, the Akhbārīs were not simple literalists, as they are at times portrayed in secondary literature. They developed a complex theory of exegesis in which texts could be interpreted,...

In this reading of Islamic legal hermeneutics, Robert Gleave explores various competing notions of literal meaning, linked to both theological doctrine and historical developments, together with insights from modern semantic and pragmatic philosophers.
Literal meaning is what a text means in itself, regardless of what its author intends to convey or the reader understands to be its message. As Islamic law is based on the central texts of Islam, the idea of a literal meaning that rules over human attempts to understand God's message has resulted in a series of debates amongst modern Muslim...

This classic study deals with the theory and practice of Islamic law in both the formative classic and modern periods and over a range of societies. It is divided into four sections dealing with legal theory; fatwas and muftis in classical Islamic law; the position of religious minorities under Islamic law, and modern developments in Islamic law. The book explores the concept of Ijtihad, or juristic disgression--the process through which a jurist apprehends God's law and can turn it into a legal ruling--and how this has influenced the formulations of law in both Sunni and Shi'i Islam. The...

The diverse studies presented in this volume recount the production, understanding and organisation of Muslim literature, both in the Muslim world and Western Europe. First, there are bio-bibliographical studies of Middle Eastern and Muslim literature, in which contributors examine texts and their interrelations in a series of discrete studies, demonstrating how bio-bibliography is reliant on the resources devised and maintained by librarians. Recurrent themes include the vexed question of authorship; extant books, tracts or reports are attributed to particular authors, but their content, at...

The contributions of Bernard Weiss to the study of the principles of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) are recognized in a series of contributions on Islamic legal theory. These thirteen chapters study a range of Islamic texts and employ contemporary legal, religious, and hermeneutical theory to study the methodology of Islamic law. Contributors include: Peter Sluglett, Ahmed El Shamsy, Eric Chaumont, A. Kevin Reinhart, Mohammad Fadel, Jonathan Brockopp, Christian Lange, Raquel M. Ukeles, Paul Powers, Robert Gleave, Wolfhart Heinrichs, Joseph Lowry, Rudolph Peters, Frank E. Vogel

Ten years after his untimely death, Norman Calder is still considered a luminary in the field of Islamic law. At the time he was one among a handful of scholars from the West who were beginning to engage with the subject. In the intervening years, much has changed, and Islamic law is now understood as fundamental to any engagement with the study of Islam, its history, and its society, and Dr. Calder s work is integral to that engagement. In this book, Colin Imber has put together and edited four essays by Norman Calder that have never been previously published. Typically incisive, they...

How was violence justified in early Islam? What role did violent actions play in the formation and maintenance of the Muslim political order? How did Muslim thinkers view the origins and acceptability of violence? These questions are addressed by an international range of eminent authors through both general accounts of types of violence and detailed case studies of violent acts drawn from the early Islamic sources. Violence is understood, widely, to include jihad, state repressions and rebellions, and also more personally directed violence against victims (women, animals, children, slaves)...