Contents

List of contributors viii

Notes on transliteration xiv

I

Approaches and the state of the field, Ahmad Atif Ahmad, Editor 1

II

What type of law is Islamic law? Khaled Abou El Fadl, Editor 11

Part I

Jurisprudence and ethics 41

1 Shari'ah, natural law and the original state 43

Ahmed Izzidien

2 ‘God cannot be harmed': On Huquq Allah/Huquq al-'ibad continuum 67

Wael Hallaq

3 Balancing this world and the next: Obligation in Islamic law

and jurisprudence 82

Omar Farahat

4 Divine command ethics in the Islamic legal tradition 98

Mariam al-Attar

5 Islamic law and bioethics 112

Ayman Shabana

Part II

History and interpretation: Scholars 125

6 The Qur’an and the Hadith as sources of Islamic law 127

Amr Osman

7 The emergence of the major schools of Islamic law/madhhabs 141

Labeeb Ahmed Bsoul

8 Qadis and muftis: Judicial authority and the social practice of Islamic law 156 Delfina Serrano Ruano

9 Ijma, consensus 171

Ahmad Atif Ahmad

10 Superior argument 183

Ahmad Atif Ahmad

11 Maqasid al-Shari'ah 195

Felicitas Opwis

12 Legal pluralism in Sunni Islamic law: The causes and functions of

juristic disagreement 208

Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim

13 Interpreting Islamic law through legal canons 221

Intisar A. Rabb

14 Ijtihad and taqlid: Between the Islamic legal tradition and autonomous

western reason 255

Sherman A.

Part III

History and interpretation: Society and politics 273

15 Legal traditions of the ‘Near East': The pre-Islamic context 275

Lena Salaymeh

16 The place of custom in Islamic law: Past and present 286

Ayman Shabana

17 Jihad, sovereignty and jurisdiction: The issue of the abode of Islam 301

Ahmed Al-Dawoody

18 Fiqh al-aqalliyyat and Muslim minorities in the West 313

Said Fares Hassan

19 Family law and succession 324

Irene Schneider

20 Islamic law and the question of gender equality 340

Ziba Mir-Hosseini

Part IV

State and power 355

21 Islamic law and the state in pre-modern Sunni thought 357

Ovamir Anjum

22 Concept of state in Shi i jurisprudence 374

Amirhassan Boozari

23 Codification, legal borrowing and the localization of ‘Islamic law' 389

Guy Burak

24 Modern Islamic constitutional theory 400

Andrew F. March

25 Islam, constitutionalism and democratic self-government 415

Mohammad H. Fadel

26 Terrorism, religious violence and the Shari'ah 428

Ahmed Al-Dawoody

Index 441