{"title":"Dhimmī-s de la Syrie rurale et institutions mameloukes: de l’utilisation de la théorie shāfiʿite à l’autonomie juridictionnelle du Patriarcat maronite d’après cinq actes d’achat inédits (IXe/XVe siècle)","authors":"Wissam H. Halawi, Élise Voguet","doi":"10.1163/15685195-00270a02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00270a02","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents the edition and translation of five unpublished notarial deeds that describe the purchase of lands for the benefit of the Maronite Patriarchate in the 9th/15th century. They attest the recognition of this ecclesiastical institution by the Mamluk authorities, so that its representatives could conclude transactions on its behalf, before the deputy of the shāfi‘ī qadi. The Patriarchate respects and uses the Islamic legal and notarial doctrine which regulates commercial practices between dhimmī-s but also between Muslims and non-Muslims. These documents provide, in addition, information on the status and nature of lands in this area, and on the amount of kharāj. The fifth deed, drawn up by a Christian notarial authority, reflects the autonomy of dhimmī institutions under the Mamluks; its reproduction and preservation also highlight the need of the Patriarchate to provide proof of ownership of its immovable property at any time.","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"27 1","pages":"325-385"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47798114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Are Cryptocurrencies ḥalāl? On the Sharia-Compliancy of Blockchain-Based Fintech","authors":"Irene K. F. Kirchner","doi":"10.1163/15685195-bja10005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-bja10005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The discussion of the sharia-compliancy of cryptocurrencies is shaped by the competing interests of legislators, the business and banking sector, private investors and, finally, religious scholars whose conclusions are diverse and often contradictory. This essay provides an overview of historical and modern Islamic conceptions of commodities and property, money, and contract of sale laws, and how they relate to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. In doing so, I respond to the most frequent concerns of Muslim scholars: the volatility and speculative nature of cryptocurrencies, security issues and, most commonly, the claim that cryptocurrencies are not ḥalāl because they have no intrinsic value. Finally, I show the consequences of different lines of argument for the sharia compliancy of cryptocurrencies in a case study of four cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, OneGramCoin, Steemit and Nexo.","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-37"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15685195-bja10005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43658590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vernacular Legalism in the Ottoman Empire: Confession, Law, and Popular Politics in the Debate over the “Religion of Abraham (millet-i Ibrāhīm)”","authors":"N. Shafir","doi":"10.1163/15685195-bja10004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-bja10004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the seventeenth century, Ottoman jurists repeatedly tried to stop Muslims from stating that they “belonged to the religion of Abraham.” A century earlier, however, the expression had been a core part of the new confessional identity of the empire’s Muslims. This article explores how the phrase changed from an attestation of faith to a sign of heresy through a study of a short pamphlet by Minḳārīzāde Yaḥyā Efendi. Minḳārīzāde argued that the use of the phrase is not permissible and addressed his arguments not to learned scholars, but to the semi-educated. I argue that Minḳārīzāde’s pamphlet provides a glimpse into “vernacular legalism” in action in the Ottoman Empire, that is, how semi-educated audiences received and understood legal debates and subsequently turned law into a space of popular politics.","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15685195-bja10004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45122581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The kitābī Wife’s Conversion to Islam: An Unusual Interpretation by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya","authors":"A. Bosanquet","doi":"10.1163/15685195-00260A05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00260A05","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay analyzes Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) teaching about the legal options open to a woman who converts to Islam while married to a Jewish or Christian husband. I argue that Ibn al-Qayyim’s preferred position is unusual for the eighth/fourteenth century in which he wrote, although it may derive from Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/ 1328) teaching on the subject. In order to contextualize Ibn al-Qayyim’s view, I summarize the variety of approaches to single-spouse conversion that dominated in the first century AH, and the broad consensus on the topic that developed after this. Although female conversion to Islam has received some attention in historical studies, there has been less focus on the legal discourse surrounding this question. The essay seeks to contribute to this discussion.","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"27 1","pages":"185-213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15685195-00260A05","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45483001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Levity Makes the Law: Islamic Legal Riddles","authors":"M. Keegan","doi":"10.1163/15685195-00260a10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00260a10","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article traces the emergence of compilations of a particular kind of legal riddle in the 8th/14th century, with special reference to the compilation of Ibn Farḥūn (d. 799/1397). Ibn Farḥūn’s riddles could be solved only by someone with detailed knowledge of Islamic positive law (furūʿ), and he argues that they are both an appropriate form of restful entertainment and a kind of competitive pedagogy. At the same time, Ibn Farḥūn derived novel legal opinions on the basis of his riddles, which demonstrates that jurists used hypothetical, imaginative situations to derive new rulings. The article also traces the origins of furūʿ-based legal riddles in the more diffuse tradition of Islamic riddling and in the adab tradition of riddling.","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"-1 1","pages":"1-26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15685195-00260a10","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48846340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"El valor del tiempo: Doctrina jurídica y práctica de la usura (ribā) en el Occidente islámico medieval, written by Adday Hernández López, 2016","authors":"Camilo Gómez-Rivas","doi":"10.1163/15685195-00273p05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00273p05","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"19 1","pages":"285-288"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138540683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aḥkām concerning the ahl al-bayt","authors":"N. Husayn","doi":"10.1163/15685195-00260a11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00260a11","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Although Islamic law generally identifies all free Muslim males as equal members of society, irrespective of race or ancestry, a peculiar exception is made for those who claim patrilineal descent from the Arab chieftain Hāshim b. ‘Abd Manāf, the great-grandfather of the Prophet Muḥammad. Drawing on hagiography and ḥadīth, Sunni and Shi‘i authors ascribe special nobility, privileges and customs to members of the clan of Hāshim. Jurists also incorporated their adoration of and respect for the Prophet’s family into their views of Islamic law. In particular, since the Prophet Muḥammad was revered as an individual who was pure (ṭāhir, zakī), some jurists held that Hāshimids possessed the same purity. The Prophet’s identities as an Arab and as a Qurashī also conferred certain legal privileges on members of these groups. After noting parallels to other high-status groups in early Muslim society, I examine more than a dozen laws that classical Sunni and Twelver Shi‘i jurists characterized as specific to the Prophet’s progeny and Household (ahl al-bayt).","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"27 1","pages":"145-184"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15685195-00260a11","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45848356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ritual and Rationality in Islam: A Case Study on Nail Polish","authors":"A. Mustafa","doi":"10.1163/15685195-00260A09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00260A09","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines an ongoing controversy in Islamic ritual law concerning the effect of nail polish on one’s ritual purity. Ritual law serves as the canvas on which some of the most intriguing debates on Islamic theology, rationality and legal reasoning are sketched out as rival conceptualizations of the nature of God – as a rational and merciful agent or as supra-rational being – generate rival sets of jurisprudential and legal doctrines. The study of ritual law also reveals key fault lines in contemporary Sunni Islamic legal and theological thought, particularly the ways in which scholars expressing varying degrees of sympathy with Salafism – from the South Asian Ahl-e Ḥadīth tradition, the Ahl al-Ḥadīth tradition and the Ḥanbalī tradition – create new positions in Sunni law while continuing to champion principles and precedents valorized in Salafism and making their arguments legible in Sunnism.","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"-1 1","pages":"1-45"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15685195-00260A09","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45439585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shurāt Legends, Ibāḍī Identities: Martyrdom, Asceticism, and the Making of an Early Islamic Community, written by Adam R. Gaiser, 2016","authors":"Christian C. Sahner","doi":"10.1163/15685195-00273P06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00273P06","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"27 1","pages":"289-293"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43021270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Casting Aside the Clutches of Conjecture: the Striving for Religious Certainty at Aligarh","authors":"S. Fuchs","doi":"10.1163/15685195-00260a15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00260a15","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Why did the famous North Indian modernist and founder of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (d. 1315/1898), lash out against emulation (taqlīd) in Islamic law (fiqh)? The usual explanation is that he wanted to shift religious authority away from the religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) toward ordinary Muslims. Countering this claim, I argue that his goal and that of his followers and associates at Aligarh was not primarily to ‘democratize’ Islamic knowledge by doing away with the traditional edifice of Islamic law in general and the four established Sunni legal schools in particular. Rather, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān and his associates attacked taqlīd because, in their view, it failed to yield reliable, certain knowledge (yaqīn). Drawing on Urdu writings, I demonstrate that these modernist thinkers did not engage with the inner logic of Islamic law but rather measured it according to higher, theological, and philosophical standards. In their quest for certainty, they were inspired both by a scientific worldview as well as colonial conceptions of law.","PeriodicalId":55965,"journal":{"name":"Islamic Law and Society","volume":"-1 1","pages":"1-25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15685195-00260a15","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43693927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}