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This chapter discusses the question of menstruating women and their exclusion (or otherwise) from mosques as featured in the al-Minhāj of the massively influential jurist Muḥy al-Dīn al-Nawawī (d. 676/1278), along with subsequent commentaries (sing. sharḥ) and glosses (pl. ḥawāshī) on his work. Certain religious duties (such as prayer and fasting) are not permitted during a woman’s menstrual period; sexual intercourse is also forbidden for her; more controversially, visiting (or passing through) the mosque is also (for some) forbidden (or at least discouraged). The text excerpted in this chapter explores various positions on the subject and the arguments for and against them put forward by past jurists of the school. Some space is taken up by an extended discussion of analogous cases to that of a menstruating woman entering a mosque.
This introduction to Section 6 of the volume on alternative sources for the study of Islamic law explores how the subject can be approached through material that is not strictly legally-focused, including such diverse genres as biographical dictionaries, licenses to teach and issue legal verdicts (pl. ijāzāt) speeches, pamphlets and novels, as well as including a representative bibliography of recent scholarship on the subject.
This introduction to Section 3 of the volume on Fatwās explores the staples of the genre while attending to its tremendous diversity in different regional and temporal contexts, including a representative bibliography of recent scholarship on the subject.
This chapter focuses on several short biographies excerpted from Persian Shīʿī biographical dictionary Rayḥānat al-Adab fī Tarājim al-Maʿrūfīn bi-l-Kunyā wa-l-Laqab (‘The Sweet Basil of Learning, concerning the biographies - tarājim - of the well-known, ordered by teknonym and nickname’) by the modern author Mīrzā Muḥammad Mudarris Khayābānī (d. 1373/1954). The work as a whole contains 4,624 biographies, arranged, alphabetically, but also by the various naming methods in Arabic. The selection presented in this chapter provides the reader with examples of unremarkable biographical entries, in the sense that the scholars are not controversial or problematic for the tradition in the view of the biographer.
This chapter discusses an ijāza (a qualificatory ‘license’) given in 1215/1800 by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Jalālī to a pupil named ʿAbd al-Qādir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāshidī al-Muʿaskarī. The granter of the license was a major scholar in late 18th century Algiers, who had been appointed by Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān, the Bey of Algiers (r. 1766-1791), as director of the newly founded Madrasa Muḥammadiyya. The ijāza translated in this chapter illustrates many of the common features of an ijāza document. Aside from the usual prayers and salutations (to God, the Prophet, his family and the Companions), there is an extended exposition of the superiority of religious knowledge and the position of the ʿulamāʾ in Muslim society, as well as a brief introduction to the skills and qualities of the ijāza recipient. The author notes that the awardee had attended his classes, and emphasises that the awardee’s learned qualities had impressed him. The genealogies of both the ijāza donor, and the ijāza recipient are also clearly important, as they are noted with care.
This chapter explores the reasoning of al-Mujāhid al-Ṭabaṭabāʾī (d. 1242/1827) in his Manāhil al-Aḥkām as it relates to the question of offer and acceptance (ījāb wa-qabūl) in the context of marriage. Ordinarily, as in contracts of sale, offer would precede acceptance, but because of social norms surrounding marriage (and women’s agency), this order is reversed. The author justifies this reversal in terms of past authorities and custom. The passages excerpted in this chapter discuss how and when this reversal of the expected order might be possible, and in the course of the discussion cover many other important issues, such as whether marriage contracts operate in precisely the same way as other contracts, and the composition of the formulae for offer and acceptance.
This introduction to Section 1 of the volume discusses the nature of Islamic legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) and comments on the structure of works of legal theory, including a representative bibliography of recent scholarship on the subject.
This introduction to Section 5 of the volume on judicial manuals and handbooks discusses the portrayal of Islamic legal judgeship (qaḍāʾ) in existing scholarship and comments on the transformation of the institution in the modern period with the rise of the nation-state and the tendency toward the codification of law, as well as including a representative bibliography of recent scholarship on the subject.
This chapter explores Salafī arguments against adherence to the Sunnī legal schools in the polemical writings of Muḥammad ʿĪd al-ʿAbbāsī, with an excerpt from his Bidʿat al-Taʿaṣṣub al-Madhhabī. Salafism (Salafiyya) is among other things critical of the edifice of the Islamic school system and its theoretical underpinnings. It emerged out of an interest in reforming Islamic thought generally, combined with a dissatisfaction and perceived decline in the spiritual health of the global Muslim community. Salafīs generally have refused to accept that the Islamic tradition - in law, theology and other disciplines - deserves the reverence and authority it appears to enjoy within the Muslim community.