Topic
Sharia Law
121 published works
Islamic Law Blog
The Commentators’ Answer to the Controversial Sentence of the Risāla: How the Mālikī Tradition Read Fawqa ʿArshihī al-Majīd bi-Dhātih
By Ilyass Amharar Where the Previous Essay Left Off The previous essay set out the grammatical anatomy of the phrase fawqa ʿarshihi al-majīd bi-dhātih (and that He is above His…
Islamic Law Blog
Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī, Ashʿarism, and the Politics of a Phrase: A Case Study in Historiographical Anachronism
By Ilyass Amharar Framing the Question This third essay in our series on the early encounters between Mālikism and Ashʿarism focuses on perhaps the most contested figure in the debate…
Islamic Law Blog
Kairouan, Baghdad, Fez: The Early Networks of Mālikī Ashʿarism in the Maghrib
By Ilyass Amharar Why This Essay Belongs on the Islamic Law Blog My first essay established that the encounter between Mālikism and Ashʿarism cannot be relegated to a late, politically…
Islamic Law Blog
Early Contacts Between Mālikism and Ashʿarism: Rethinking a Narrative of Separation
By Maggie Sager
By Ilyass Amharar Why This Question Matters for Islamic Legal History? Readers of a blog devoted to Islamic law might reasonably wonder why a post about kalām (speculative theology) belongs…
Islamic Law Blog
Welcome to our August Guest Blogger: Ilyass Amharar
lyass Amharar is a Faculty Member in Arabic Language and Islamic Thought at the University of al-Qarawiyyin’s Muhammad VI Institute of Quranic Studies, Rabat. He holds a Habilitation to Supervise…
Islamic Law Blog
Revisiting al-ʿUtbī’s Mustakhraja: Ibn Rushd al-Jadd’s al-Bayān wa’l-taḥsīl
By Janina Safran In this essay, I illustrate the methods of juridical thinking and argumentation at the highest level among Mālikīs in al-Andalus in the early sixth/twelfth century. One aim…
Islamic Law Blog
Tenth-Century Approaches to Andalusī-Mālikī Legal Opinions (Masāʾil)
By Janina Safran Proto-Mālikīs in al-Andalus in the third/ninth century memorized, copied, transmitted, and studied opinions attributed to Mālik (d. 179/795) and his students (masāʾil, sg. masʾala). Proto-Mālikīs considered these…
Islamic Law Blog
How did jurists interpret and practice law in al-Andalus in the Umayyad period?
By Janina Safran The question arose in a recent round table discussion and is challenging to answer for three central reasons.[1] First are the usual problems of little textual evidence:…
Islamic Law Blog
Competing Moral Logics: Islamic Law, Slavery, and Abolition in the Contemporary World
By Haroon Bashir Debates regarding slavery and Islam have resurfaced in modern times, partly due to the re-emergence of slavery through the actions of groups such as ISIS and Boko…
Islamic Law Blog
The Emancipatory Ethic? Freedom in Classical Islamic Law
By Haroon Bashir Slavery has been a near-universal institution throughout human history, and its formal abolition is a relatively recent development.[1] Like all scholars, Muslim jurists were shaped by their…