Muslim Preaching in the Middle East and Beyond: Historical and Contemporary Case Studies

Abstract

and their occasional self-contradiction (as on polygamy), are an important complement to Shaham’s depiction of al-Qaradawi’s views. The benefit to reading these clearly argued and well-evidenced books together, which those interested in modern fatwas should do, is precisely the interplay of convergence and divergence. We are reminded by Larsen how much local context matters; we are reminded by Shaham of al-Qaradawi’s global influence. Larsen shows that fatwas are social documents, shaped by audience questions and expectations; Shaham shows that they are legal ones, shaped by jurisprudential method, precedent and commitments. While accessible in its language and organization, Rethinking Islamic Legal Modernism will primarily be of interest to specialists in Islamic law or perhaps contemporary Muslim thought. The more ambitious How Muftis Think is likewise useful for specialists, engaging scholarly debates about maqāsịd and fatwa-giving, but will also appeal to broader audiences, including students and scholars of Muslims in Europe and of gender and Islam. As I feel compelled to do whenever I review books by Brill, I note the prohibitive price tag: only libraries can afford them. In the case of Larsen’s book in particular, that is a shame as the book could be assigned for courses on Islamic law as well as contemporary Muslim life; for those who would like to assign a fair-use portion, I would recommend Chapters 3, 4 and/or 5 as accessible introductions to modern fatwa-giving. Finally, as my current research investigates how women as historical agents and as authors of scholarly work tend to be overlooked and under-cited, I want to say a word about those dynamics here. Shaham’s book, by defining its scope narrowly and mostly engaging the secondary literature on al-Qaradawi specifically and usụ̄l al-fiqh broadly, ignores vibrant bodies of work on, for example, assisted reproduction, Islamic bioethics, and gender and law. There is barely any engagement with women’s literature on Qur’an, tafsīr or intermarriage. In addition, Shaham tends to credit male scholars in the body of the work and others only in the notes. While there are exceptions, as with Felicitas Opwis’s work on masḷaḥa, the pattern largely holds. For instance, Bettina Graf’s articles about al-Qaradawi and his thought are relegated to the footnotes. As usual, those not named in the text are also excluded from the index. Of course, insofar as muftis remain mostly male, the focus of these studies on male-authored texts and male-dominated institutions is unavoidable.