Structural Interrelations of Theory And Practice in Islamic Law: A Study of Six Works of Medieval Islamic Jurisprudence (Studies in Islamic Law and Society)

235 Pages·2006·1.78 MB·English

by  Ahmad Atif Ahmad

STRUCTURAL INTERRELATIONS OF THEORY AND
PRACTICE IN ISLAMIC LAW
STUDIES
IN ISLAMIC LAW
AND SOCIETY
edited by
Ruud Peters and Bernard Weiss
volume
27
STRUCTURAL INTERRELATIONS
OF THEORY AND PRACTICE IN
ISLAMIC LAW
A Study of Six Works of Medieval Islamic Jurisprudence
BY
AHMAD ATIF AHMAD
BRILL
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2006
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISSN 1384–1130
ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15031-7
ISBN-10: 90-04-15031-5
© Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers,
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal
use is granted by Brill provided that
the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright
Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910
Danvers, MA01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
To my mother Asm§a (1944– ), my first and most significant teacher;
to my father b$ãif (1942– ), who told me as I turned 13, “you are no
longer just my son; from now on, you are also my friend”; to the
memory of my grandpa AÈmad (1906–2006), whose presence and
views gave me a different perspective on continuity and change; and
to my nephew Yåsuf (2004– ), who will likely inhabit a world
quite different from that inhabited by all of the above . . .
I dedicate this work
Ahmad

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Glossary of Terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Prologue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Chapter I. Terminology and Theoretical Frameworks . . . . . . . . 1
TakhrÊj, Ußål and Furåb. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Sources, Components, and Telos of Ußål al-Fiqh . . . . . . . . 4
Legal Theory and Legal Philosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Law: Islamic and Non-Islamic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Question of Genre in Legal Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter II. Impressions and Misconceptions in the
Study of Islamic Legal History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
On the Muslim Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Traditional Approaches to Islamic Legal history
and the Mab§dÊ of Ußål Al-Fiqh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Ibn Khaldån’s Prolegomenon and The Formation of
A Modern Muslim History of Islamic Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Ußål and Furåb in Western Academia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Ußål and Furåb from Two Inadequate Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . 45
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Chapter III. An Overview of Six TakhrÊj Works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
DabbåsÊ and the TaasÊs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Zanj§nÊ and the TakhrÊj. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Tilims§nÊ and the Mift§È . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
IsnawaÊ and the TamhÊd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Ibn al-LaÈȧm and the Qaw§bid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Timurt§shÊ and the Wußål . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
viii contents
Chapter IV. Agency, Responsibility, and Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Grand Legal Theory Ußål Al-Fiqh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
GLT Ußål Al-Fiqh and Legal Determinations
in My Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Agency and Responsibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Chapter V. The Ußål of Legal Hermeneutics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
The Textual Sources of the Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
The General Theory of Legal Hermeneutics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Commands and Prohibitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Ambiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
A fortiori Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Expressio unius est exclusio ulterius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Determining Preponderance among Conflicting Texts . . . . . . 130
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Chapter VI. Extra-Textual Sources of the Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Lost Textual Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Juristic Consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Rational and Amalgamated Sources of the Law . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Utility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Custom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Pre-MuÈammadan Laws. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Hierarchy among the Sources Revisited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Chapter VII. Unclassifiable Ußål. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Ußål, Theology, and Political Theory: Two Authorities . . . . . . 154
The Jurist’s \ukm as a Simulacrum of Divinely-Instituted
Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Court Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Law and Authority. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
The Jurisdiction of Islamic law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Legal Maxims (Qaw§bid Fiqhiyya) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Definientia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Independent Reasoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
contents ix
Between Legal Maxims and Kal§m. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Chapter VIII. The Furåb and Their Interrelation with
the Ußål . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
The Scope of the Furåb in the Sources of this Study . . . . . . . . 175
Hypothetical Questions and the Interrelation of
Legal Theory and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Final Remarks on the Multidimensional Connections
Between Legal Theory and Legal Practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201