Islamic Studies: Law & Jurisprudence

"Used widely by Shi'ite seminaries, and valued by Sunni scholars for its intellectual rigor, Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr's Lessons is a key study of Islamic jurisprudence. It covers topics from the general characterization of jurisprudence to such specialized issues as the assessment of the verbal divine-law argument, study of procedural principles, and reflections on the resolution of conflicting arguments. The new translation by Roy Mottahedeh from the original Arabic employs a carefully designed and appropriate English terminology, and features a significant amount of supporting material including a glossary of legal and theological concepts , and a full index of Arabic terms." - Publisher

"Drawing on legal and ḥadīth texts from the formative and classical periods of Islamic legal history, this book offers an overview of the development of the questions prominent jurists asked and answered when they thought about women's issues." - Brill

"This first-rate English translation of the 1910 German edition of what has been universally recognized as a major classic in Islamic studies is a welcome addition to the corpus of interpretive analyses by Western scholars on the origin and development of Islamic theology and law. Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton contributes a useful introduction with additional notes, putting Ignaz Goldziher's original lectures on Islam in thecontext of contemporary knowledge." - John P. Entelis

"Covering more than three centuries of legal history, this study presents an important account of how Islam developed its own law from ancient Near Eastern legal cultures, Arabian customary law and Quranic reform. The book explores the interplay between law and politics, demonstrating how the jurists and ruling elite led a symbiotic existence that paradoxically allowed Islamic law to become uniquely independent of the "state.'" - Cambridge University Press

"This unparalleled Companion provides a comprehensive and authoritative guide to Islamic law to all with an interest in this increasingly relevant and developing field. The volume presents classical Islamic law through a historiographical introduction to and analysis of Western scholarship, while key debates about hot-button issues in modern-day circumstances are also addressed. In twenty-one chapters, distinguished authors offer an overview of their particular specialty, reflect on past and current thinking, and point to directions for future research... By outlining the history of Islamic law through a linear study of research, this collection is unique in its examination of past and present scholarship and the lessons we can draw from this for the future. It introduces scholars and students to the challenges posed in the past, to the magnitude of milestones that were achieved in the reinterpretation and revision of established ideas, and ultimately to a thorough conceptual understanding of Islamic law." - Routledge

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.
Read more at http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/law-general-interest/authority-continuity-and-change-islamic-law#P2QciLzqOMF1Xyo6.99

"The Islamic regime that came to power after the 1978-79 Iranian revolution justified the rule of the Ayatollah Khomeni, and the Shi'ite imams in general, on the basis of the doctrine that the Islamic jurist is best suited to rule with justice in an Islamic country. Arguing that this concept has no apparent parallel in Sunni Islam, this study explores its origins in the Sunni/Shi'ite schism, which took place after the death of the Prophet, and traces its evolution to the present day. Sachedina presents the first in-depth analysis of an Islamic phenomenon of vital contemporary social and political importance." - Oxford University Press

"Khaled Abou El Fadl is a classically-trained Islamic jurist, an American lawyer and law professor, and one of the most important Islamic thinkers today. In this updated and expanded edition of The Search for Beauty in Islam, Abou El Fadl offers eye-opening and enlightening insights into the contemporary realities of the current state of Islam and the West. Through a "conference of the books," an imagined conference of Muslim intellects from centuries past, Abou El Fadl examines the ugliness that has come to plague Muslim realities and attempts to reclaim what he maintains is a core moral value in Islam-the value of beauty. Does Islamic law allow, or even call for, the gruesome acts of ugliness that have become so commonly associated with Islam today? Has Islam become a religion devoid of beauty, compassion and love? Based on actual cases, this book tackles different issues and problems in each chapter through a post-9/11 lens, discussing such topics as marriage, divorce, parental rights, the position of women, the veil, sexual abuse, wife-beating, terrorism, bigotry, morality, law, and the role of tradition. Abou El Fadl argues that the rekindling of the forgotten value of beauty is essential for Muslims today to take back what has been lost to the fundamentalist forces that have denigrated their religion." - Publisher

"The Canonization of Islamic Law tells the story of the birth of classical Islamic law in the eighth and ninth centuries CE. It shows how an oral normative tradition embedded in communal practice was transformed into a systematic legal science defined by hermeneutic analysis of a clearly demarcated scriptural canon. This transformation was inaugurated by the innovative legal theory of Muhammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi'ī (d. 820 CE), and it took place against the background of a crisis of identity and religious authority in ninth-century Egypt. By tracing the formulation, reception, interpretation and spread of al-Shāfi'ī's ideas, the author demonstrates how the canonization of scripture that lay at the heart of al-Shāfi'ī's theory formed the basis for the emergence of legal hermeneutics, the formation of the Sunni schools of law, and the creation of a shared methodological basis in Muslim thought." - CUP