An unexplained reversal

Between 1998 and 2001, however, something happened. The very opening lines of Hallaq’s new book, Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law, read as follows:

To say that authority is the centerpiece of law is merely to state the obvious.

From here Hallaq goes on to cast taqlid in a totally a new light. Taqlid is no longer ‘blind or mindless acquiescence’; ⁵¹ nor does it imply ‘slavish imitation’. Taqlid is now an ‘undeniably creative activity’⁵² that ‘may at times border on the juristic activity associated with ijtihad’.⁵³ Taqlid is ‘intelligent and creative’.⁵⁴ In fact, we can now even speak of ‘the achievement of taqlid’.⁵⁵ For taqlid is now ‘dynamic and vibrant’,⁵⁶ ‘far from blind following’,⁵⁷ perhaps even ‘a reenactment of ijtihad’.⁵⁸ Whereas it was emphatically wrong for Jackson to consider al- Qarafi’s ‘innovativeness’ an exercise in taqlid, jurists could now readily display their acumen and innovativeness through this medium, so much so that al-Nawawi’s taqlid in one instance is described as being ‘of the best kind’.⁵⁹ Indeed, we can even speak of ‘the liberal nature of taqlid’.⁶⁰ In his review of Islamic Law and the State, Hallaq had ridiculed Jackson for consider­ing takhrij a form of taqlid, it being, according to him, ‘undeniably a form of iytihid’.⁶¹ Now, however, takhrij is unproblematically a cognate of taqlid, not even always distinguishable from the latter as a means of garnering interpretive authority.⁶²

Surprisingly, however, nowhere in any of this is there any indication that Hallaq had changed his mind on any of his previously held views. He offers no mea culpas; and neither Jackson nor anyone else is cited as having contributed anything to his new understanding, not even negatively in the form of mistakes that alert him to interpretive pitfalls, dead-ends or wrong turns.⁶³ Nor does he trace the evolution of his own thinking on the matter.

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