Syllabus
Main topics:Lecture: Introduction to Sharī‛ah, Fiqh and Theory of Law (Vikor, Between God, 1-30) Lecture: Sources of Law – Quranic Legislation and Hadith (Vikor, Between God, 31-52) Seminar: al-Shāfi‛ī, Muḥammad ibn Idrīs. The Epistle on Legal Theory.
Edited and Translated by Joseph E. Lowry.
New York and London: New York University Press, 2013, 45-81; 155-179. Lecture: Islamic Jurisprudence and Substantive Law (Vikor, Between God, 53-86) Seminar: Al-Maqāṣid: Nawawī’s Manual of Islam, 189-208;Fadel, Mohamed.
The Social Logic of Taqlīd and the Rise of the Mukhtasar. Islamic Law and Society 3/2 (1996), 193-223.
Lecture: The authority in Law (Vikor, Between God, 89-113) Seminar: Dutton, Yasin. Original Islam, 26-67.
Lecture: Scholars Muftis, and Judges (Vikor, Between God, 140-183) Seminar: Ibn Rushd, vol. II, 557-576; Calder, Norman.
Scholars, Muftis, Judges and Secular Power, in Calder, Norman. Islamic Jurisprudence in the Classical Era.
Edited by Colin Imber. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 116-166.
Lecture: Criminal Law (Vikor, Between God, 280-298; Lange, Christian R. Public Order, in Peters, Rudolph, Bearman, Peri.
The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2014, 165-177.) Seminar: Ibn Rushd, vol.
II, 521-552. Lecture: Family Law (Vikor, Between God, 299-325; Jones-Pauly, Christina.
Gender Relations, in Peters, Rudolph, Bearman, Peri. The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law.
Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2014, 137-149.). Seminar: Al-Miṣrī.
Reliance, 524-571.
Annotation
This course will examine the development, concepts, and methods of Islamic law as well as its implementation in diverse societies. We will begin discussing notions of law – what law is and how Islamic Law compares to other legal systems.
We will discuss the early development of Islamic law, its sources and methods, its division into legal schools, and its application in a variety of places and times. We will see that far from being monolithic, Islamic law is diverse in both theory and practice.
As we look at doctrines and implementation of Islamic law, we will focus on purity rules, "forbidding wrong," jihad, and family law in the classical, medieval, and modern eras, up to the present day.
