Cattelan Valentino. Religion and Contract Law in Islam: From Medieval Trade to Global Finance. Routledge,2023. — 230 p.. 2023

The thoughts collected in this book belong to different periods of time and reflect different angles from which I have investigated Islamic contract law over the years. Some of these thoughts (especially those in Chapter 3) date back directly to my Ph.D. research (Siena, 2009) and have been revisited in the light of a law-religion methodology (Chapter 1 and Chapter 2). The text also deals with issues of law in context (Chapter 4), cultural studies, Orientalism, dialectic, media theory, and the impact of our (non-)identity on the representation of the real (Introduction). In combining all these fields, I have tried to show the various ways through which the Islamic contract (‘aqd in the Arabic language) has been said in space and time. By listening back to the Arab Girl (Conclusions) after having seen her (Introduction), I trust the reader will appreciate the consistency as well as the variations of meaning that the Islamic contract has experienced in relation to the diverse media of its representations.

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Expelling the merchants from the Temple

Methodology and the contents of this book

In the Introduction, I argued that, alongside the history of the Muslim world, the ‘aqd has maintained, ‘a continuity in practice, despite the changeable and plural nature of its theories and practices: a continuity whose rationales... can be coherently linked to the core postulates of Islamic religion.’

One Ring, some daemons, and Jesus Christ: the non-identity (1M) of law and religion

The problem at the heart of this book

Some conceptual help from three companions

Carrying the One Ring in the practice of trade: revelation, tradition, and reality

The revealed Word in translation

The space of law and religion in Islam

Carrying the One Ring of non-identity, Chapter 1 has endorsed The Fellowship of three great thinkers: Roy Bhaskar, Shahab Ahmed, and Marshall McLuhan. It has also subscribed to Calder’s portrayal of Islamic law as ‘a conceptual replica of social life,

Babel, languages, and the sacred law of Islam

Profanations: religious vs secular in the Temple of Western modernity

An absence of religion? Translating the non-identity of dm as Islamic bios

The revelation of Islam: the Wor(l)d and its understanding

The bridge of Babel: from the negation of fiqh (2E) to the comparison of the ‘aqd

Comparing legal traditions

Contract law and Muslim fiqh

Crossing the bridge of Babel from West to East in the attempt to translate the non-identity of law-religion, we have postulated the dialectical coexistence of presence and absence, with the latter taking primacy over the former (Bhaskar, 1993, p. 5).

The ‘aqd as a craft of place in the space of Islam

A map of the city? The Two Towers and the plural itineraries of the madhahib

‘Aqd and Islamic din

The role of human will and rationality in the psychological formation of the ‘aqd

The construction of the ‘aqd as consensual transfer of properties

A unity of diversities: fiqh pluralism and the totality (3L) of the ‘aqd as the performance of God’s will

Realities of the Muslim world

Changing contexts over time

Moving from the revelation of San‘ah to the tradition offiqh, our voyage has proceeded by means of strategies of translation (Chapter 2) and comparison (Chapter 3) to discover the ‘aqd in the acoustic space of Islam.

Continuity, change, and transformative praxis (4D): fiqh and textual polities

Verbal Trade

Codified Norm

Typewritten Market

Human agency and the urban designs of the ‘aqd

Conclusions

Ways of saying the ‘aqd

The story of the ‘aqd that this book has narrated is a story of continuity and change. It is also a story of non-identity, dialectics, and encounter.

Islam, the body of law, and the living text of Sari‘ah

The One Ring of law-religion and the return to the Arab Girl (and ourselves)

References

Glossary of Arabic terms*

Index

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