Islamic Legal Theory

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Discussion Forum

Module Overview

Glossary of frequently used Arabic terms-of-art

Assessments and Deadlines

Assessment Marking Criteria

Three Short Introductory Readings by Professor M Baderin

Short Video on Understanding Islamic Law by Professor M Baderin

AS1

AS2

Week 1 - Introduction: Islamic Legal Theory and Critique

Lecture 1 (PPT)

Mashood A. Baderin, Islamic Law: A Very Short Introduction, ch. 1-3

Knut S. Vikør, ‘Introduction: Does Islamic Law Exist?’

Ahmad Atif Ahmad, ‘Impressions and Misconceptions in the Study of Islamic Legal History’

Baber Johansen, ‘Dissent and Uncertainty in the Process of Legal Norm Construction in Muslim Sunnī Law’

Talal Asad, ‘Historical Notes on the Idea of Secular Criticism’

Mashood A. Baderin, ‘Understanding Islamic Law in Theory and Practice’

James E. Lindsay, ‘Basic Chronology of Events’, ‘Major Themes in Medieval Islamic History’ &amp; ‘Arabia’

Chase F. Robinson, ‘Writing History’

Week 2 - Reason, Tradition and Practical Justice: Early Tensions in Islamic Legal Theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) and Practice (furū‘ l-fiqh)

Lecture 2 (PPT)

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘The Early Judges, Legal Specialists and the Search for Religious Authority’

Majid Fakhry, ‘Early Political and Religious Tensions’

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Evolution of the Judiciary’, ‘The Great Rationalist-Traditionalist Synthesis’ &amp; ‘The Formation of Legal Schools’

Henry Corbin, ‘The Sunni Kalam’

Antony Black, ‘The Idea of Monarchy under the Umayyads and ‘Abbasids c. 661-850’

Garth Fowden, ‘Arabic Aristotelianism’

Ira M. Lapidus, ‘The ‘Abbasids: Caliphs and Emperors’

Week 3 - Imam Shāfi‘ī and the Tenets of Sunnī Jurisprudential Centralisation

Lecture 3 (PPT)

Noel J. Coulson, ‘Master Architect: Muḥammad Ibn-Idrīs ash-Shāfi‘ī’

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Was al-Shafi‘i the Master Architect of Islamic Jurisprudence?’

Christopher Melchert, ‘The Traditionalists of Iraq’ &amp; ‘Conclusion’

Majid Khadduri, ‘Shāfi‘ī’s Life’, ‘The Vocabulary of the Risāla’, ‘Fundamental Ideas of the Risāla’, ‘Shāfi‘ī as the Founder of the Science of Islamic Jurisprudence’ &amp; ‘The Islamization and Idealization of Law’

Pavel Pavlovitch, ‘The Islamic Penalty for Adultery in the Third Century AH and Al-Shāfi‘ī’s Risāla’

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘From Regional to Personal Schools of Law?: A Reevaluation’

Asma Sayeed, ‘Gender and Legal Authority: An Examination of Early Juristic Opposition to Women's Ḥadīth Transmission’

Jonathan A.C. Brown, ‘Even if it’s Not True it’s True: Using Unreliable Ḥadīths in Sunni Islam’

Ahmed El Shamsy, ‘The First Shāfiī: The Traditionalist Legal Thought of Abū Ya‘qūb al-Buwayṭī (d. 231/846)’

Week 4 - Early Governance Debates: Ibn Taymiyya’s al-siyāsa al-shar‘iyya in a Critical Perspective

Lecture 4 (PPT)

Baber Johansen, ‘A Perfect Law in an Imperfect Society: Ibn Taymiyya’s Concept of “Governance in the Name of the Sacred Law”’

Baber Johansen, ‘Signs as Evidence: The Doctrine of Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1351) on Proof’

Antony Black, ‘Mamluk Ideology and the Sultan-Caliph’ &amp; ‘Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328): Shari‘a Governance (al-siyasa al-shar‘iyya)’

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Self-Rule, Government and the Sharī‘a’

Amr A. Shalakany, ‘Islamic Legal Histories’

Nicola A. Ziadeh, Damascus under the Mamlūks

Knut S. Vikør, ‘The Court and the State’

Benjamin Jokisch, ‘Ijtihād in Ibn Taymiyya’s Fatāwā’

Week 7 - Islamic Legal Theory and European Imperialism: From ‘Anglo-Mohammedan’ Law to Tanzimât Fermânı

Lecture 7 (PPT)

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘British India’

Scott Alan Kugle, ‘Framed, Blamed and Renamed: The Recasting of Islamic Jurisprudence in Colonial South Asia’

Rudolph Peters, ‘Anglo-Muḥammadan Criminal Law and Its Demise’

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Hegemonic Modernity: The Middle East and North Africa during the Nineteenth and Early Twentiety Centuries’

Rudolph Peters, ‘Legal Dualism: The Separation between the Domains of Shari‘a and Siyāsa’

Recep Şentürk, ‘Intellectual Dependency: Late Ottoman Intellectuals between fiqh and Social Science’

Şevket Pamuk, ‘Introduction’

Elisa Giunchi, ‘The Reinvention of Sharī‘a under the British Raj: In Search of Authenticity and Certainty’

Bruce Masters, ‘The Tanzimat and the Time of Re-Ottomanization’

Daniel J. Schroeter, ‘The Changing Relationship between the Jews of the Arab Middle East and the Ottoman State in the Nineteenth Century’

Ussama Makdisi, ‘Ottoman Orientalism’

Week 8 - The Law, Empire and Early Islamic Modernism: ‘Abduh, Riḍā’, Khallāf and Nursî

Lecture 8 (PPT)

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Modernizing the Law in the Age of Nation-States’ &amp; ‘In Search of a Legal Methodology’

Dale F. Eickelman, ‘Justice, Morality, and Modernity: What Makes the Risale-i Nur Modern?’

Ahmad Dallal, ‘Appropriating the Past: Twentieth-Century Reconstruction of Pre-Modern Islamic Thought’

David Johnston, ‘A Turn in the Epistemology and Hermeneutics of Twentieth Century Uṣūl al-Fiqh’

Aziz Al-Azmeh, ‘Muslim Modernism and the Canonical Text’

Nilüfer Göle, ‘Snapshots of Islamic Modernities’

Margaret Kohn, ‘Afghānī on Empire, Islam, and Civilization’

Francis Robinson, ‘Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia’

Week 10 - Islamic Law and the Question of Modern Nation-State

Lecture 10 (PPT)

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘The Conceptual Framework: An Introduction’

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘The Modern State’

Sami Zubaida, ‘The Nation State in the Middle East’

James E. Lindsay, ‘Basic Chronology of Events’, ‘Major Themes in Medieval Islamic History’ & ‘Arabia’

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Evolution of the Judiciary’, ‘The Great Rationalist-Traditionalist Synthesis’ & ‘The Formation of Legal Schools’

Christopher Melchert, ‘The Traditionalists of Iraq’ & ‘Conclusion’

Majid Khadduri, ‘Shāfi‘ī’s Life’, ‘The Vocabulary of the Risāla’, ‘Fundamental Ideas of the Risāla’, ‘Shāfi‘ī as the Founder of the Science of Islamic Jurisprudence’ & ‘The Islamization and Idealization of Law’

Antony Black, ‘Mamluk Ideology and the Sultan-Caliph’ & ‘Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328): Shari‘a Governance (al-siyasa al-shar‘iyya)’

Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Modernizing the Law in the Age of Nation-States’ & ‘In Search of a Legal Methodology’

Haniff Ahamat & Mohd Hisham Mohd Kamal, ‘Modern Application of Siyar (Islamic Law of Nations): Some Preliminary Observations’

Paolo Sartori & Ido Shakar, ‘Legal Pluralism in Muslim-Majority Colonies: Mapping the Terrain’