Contents

Figures and diagrams xi

Preface xii

Acknowledgements xiv

Introduction: ways of seeing an Arab Girl 1

From archetypes to corpora iuris 2

Representations, meaning, and signifying practices: the riddle

of the Sphinx 3

Imaginative geographies of Orientalism: The Almeh and the

city of the ‘aqd 6

Looking at normative worlds; listening to the language of Islam 10

1 Expelling the merchants from the Temple: methodology and the contents of this book 18

1.1.

1.2. The problem at the heart of this book 22

1.3. Some conceptual help from three companions 24

1.3.1. How to compare? Non-identity, dialectic, and transformative praxis (Bhaskar) 25

1.3.2. What is Islam? Unity as plurality in the Muslim world (Ahmed) 28

1.3.3. How to deal with law-religion in Islam? Visual vs acoustic space (McLuhan) 30

1.4. Carrying the One Ring in the practice of trade: revelation, tradition, and reality 34

2 The revealed Word in translation: the space of law and

religion in Islam 42

2.1. Babel, languages, and the sacred law of Islam 42

2.2. Profanations: religious vs secular in the Temple of Western modernity 46

2.3. An absence of religion? Translating the non-identity of din as Islamic bios 49

2.4. The revelation of Islam: the Wor(l)d and its understanding 54

2.4.1. TranslatingSari‘ah in human life: the normative science of fiqh 54

2.4.2. The dictum of the revelation as pre-scribed Law and the usul al-fiqh 56

2.4.3. Furu‘ al-fiqh as de-scribed law in a iurisdictio of verdicts 59

2.4.4. From the rule (hukm) to the right (haqq): an instance of action in the wor(l)d 62

2.4.5. Echoing the revelation in an acoustic space: a sacred law without corpus 67

2.5. The bridge of Babel: from the negation of fiqh (2E) to the comparison of the ‘aqd 71

3 Comparing legal traditions: contract law and Muslim fiqh 83

3.1.

3.2. A map of the city? The Two Towers and the plural itineraries of the madhahib 85

3.3. ‘Aqd and Islamic din 88

3.3.1. The rule (hukm al-‘aqd), its subject, and its object: from legal capacity (ahliyya) and personality

(dhimma) to the duty (wujub) of the mukallaf 89

3.3.2. Religious qualifications (al-ahkam al-khamsa) and the legal validity of the sar‘i act, its constitutive (arkan) and conditional (surut) elements 90

3.3.3. At the borders of the city: the act ofdisposal (tasarruf) in relation to contractual rights(huqu.q al- ‘aqd) 92

3.4. The role of human will and rationality in the psychological formation of the ‘aqd 94

3.4.1. Autonomie de la volonte and the ‘reason' underlying the contract: ‘illa and sabab in comparison with the civilian cause and the consideration of common law 95

3.4.2. Freedom of contract, nominate contracts, and attached stipulations 98

3.4.3. Psychological components of the ‘aqd: will (irada), intention (niyya), animus contrahendi (qasd), choice (khiyar), and individual consent (rida) 101

• Sdfi‘ts and Hanafis: objectivism 103

• Mdlikts and Hanbalts: subjectivism 106

3.4.4. The vices of consent(duress, ikrah; fraud, tadlis; mistake, ghalat), misrepresentation, and the doctrine of al-khiyarat 109

3.5. The construction of the ‘aqd as consensual transfer of properties 115

3.5.1. Expression (sighah), verbalism, and the unity of negotiations (majlis al- ‘aqd) 115

3.5.2. Offer (ijab) and acceptance (qabul) in the taradl: what is the nature of the agreement in Muslim fiqh? 120

3.5.3. The subject matter (mahall) of the contract (al-ma‘qud ‘alayhi): exchanging properties (amwal), either ‘ayn or dayn, in relation to the dhimma 123

3.5.4. The equilibrium of the contract and the doctrines of riba, maysir, and gharar 129

• Riba 130

• Gharar 131

• Maysir/Qimar 132

3.6. A unity of diversities: fiqh pluralism and the totality (3L) of the ‘aqd as the performance of God's will 137

4 Realities of the Muslim world: changing contexts over time 151

4.1.

4.2. Verbal Trade 157

4.2.1. Pre-Islamic customs, formalism, and the origins of the ‘aqd 158

4.2.2. Verbalism and documentary evidence in Muslim medieval trade 159

4.2.3. Legal devices (hiyal): contractual theories-into-practices 161

4.3. Codified Norm 167

4.3.1. The invention ofa corpus for Islamic law and the ‘aqd: Western transplants and the codification process in Muslim countries 167

4.3.2. Embodying the West: Sanhun's reformulation of sabab and ghalat in the Egyptian Civil Code 171

4.4. Typewritten Market 178

4.4.1. Global capitalism and the invention of Islamic finance: a new life for the ‘aqd between authenticity and contamination 178

4.4.2. The textual polity of Shari‘ah-compliance 182

4.4.3. From fiqh legal texts to financial technology 185

4.5. Human agency and the urban designs of the ‘aqd 186

Conclusions: ways of saying the ‘aqd 197

Islam, the body of law, and the living text of Sari‘ah 197

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

(and ourselves) 199

Glossary of Arabic terms 202

Index 206

Figures and diagrams

Figure 0.1 - The Almeh with Pipe (also known as Arab Girl in a

Doorway., oil on canvas by Jean-Leon Gerome, 1873; courtesy

by Najd Collection/Mathaf Gallery London) 7

Figure 1.1 - Christ Cleansing the Temple (oil on canvas by El

Greco, around 1570; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) 21 Figure 2.1 - The Word engraved in the world (Kufic inscription

of Qur’anic verses in the Mosque-Madrassa Sultan Hassan,

Cairo; author’s photograph, 2009) 56

Figure 4.1 - Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake

(print artwork by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1857; Metropolitan

Museum of Art, New York) 155

Diagram 1 - Theoretical approaches of the Sunni schools to

contractual freedom 101

Diagram 2 - Objectivism and subjectivism in the Sunni schools 109

Diagram 3 - The ‘aqd as conceived in the tradition of Muslim fiqh 139

Diagram 4 - Approaches by the Sunni schools towards legal

devices (hiyal) 166