ISLA 383: Central Questions in Islamic Law
Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim
Winter 2014 [MW 1:05-2:25, BIRKS 111]
Course description
Through a mix of lectures and discussions, Central Questions in Islamic Law offers an integrative view of Islamic law in the past and present, including landmarks in Islamic legal history (e.g., sources of law; early formation; intellectual make-up; the workings of court; legal change; legal effects of colonialism; modernity and legal reform).
Office Hours:
Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim: MW 2:30-3:30 PM (Room 310, Institute of Islamic Studies).
Omar Edaibat: M 11:00-1:00 (Room 321, Institute of Islamic Studies).
Course Requirements and Evaluation
25% Participation in Class and Online: All students are expected to finish their readings and participate effectively in class and online discussions, whenever called upon to share their thoughts.
25% Quiz
25% Collective Reflection Paper: Students will select a theme in collaboration with the professor and the RA to write on with a group. Start finding a group of 3-4 max and come up with themes that you want to write a reflection paper on as a group. This paper should be between 1800 and 2000 words.
25% Final Paper: Students are required to write a typed 3000-3500 word paper (double-spaced, 12-point font, one- inch margins) on a topic related to Islamic law. A full outline of at least two pages will also be required. Students are also expected to provide a two-page final outline of the paper and summary of their findings to the rest of the class to read and discuss in the last few sessions of the course. Students are encouraged (but not required) to grade each other’s papers in groups of four before submission to the professor.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
1) Learn about the legal landscape of pre-Islamic Arabia
2) Understand the origins of Islamic law (how and why Islamic law took the shape it did and learn about some of the important figures of the formative period)
3) Learn about law-making in Islamic law (how law is made, who are the important legal authorities in Islamic law)
4) Learn about the sources of Islamic law and questions of continuity, change, and authenticity
5) Understand the transformations that Islamic law underwent in the modern period and what the contestation over Islamic law in the modern period means for Muslims around the world today. Class Policies
There will be time for questions and discussions after lectures, so do not interrupt the lecture to ask questions. Have your questions ready for the discussion time. You are allowed only two unexcused absences; the third unexcused absence will reduce your class participation grade by one level (e.g. A to A-). This rule will only apply after the first two weeks of classes. Late assignments will be penalized at the rate of one grade per day (e.g. an A will be A- if late for one day and B+ if late for two days). Extensions will be granted only in cases of genuine emergency. No incompletes will be given except in cases of genuine emergency.
Required Books (available at the McGill bookstore) Wael B. Hallaq, Sharīʻa: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Reference Works and Guides The Encyclopaedia of Islam
Books on Reserve for Final Paper Research
1. Ignác Goldziher and S. M Stern, Muslim studies (Muhammedanische Studien); (London: Allen & Unwin, 1968), vol. 2. 2. G. H. A Juynboll, Muslim tradition : studies in chronology, provenance, and authorship of early hadith (Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 3. Mahmoud A El-Gamal, Islamic finance : law, economics, and practice (Cambridge [UK]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 4. Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford [Oxfordshire]; New York: Clarendon Press, 1982). 5. Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Corr. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967). 6. Wael B. Hallaq, Sharīʻa: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 7. Christopher Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th-10th Centuries C.E. (BRILL, 1997).
Week 1: Origins
Monday (January 5) – Introduction
Wednesday (January 7)
Muhammad Baqir Sadr and Roy P Mottahedeh, Lessons in Islamic jurisprudence (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 1-27 (until The Life of al-Sadr).
Wael B. Hallaq, Sharīʻa: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 27–71.
Week 2: Emergence of Schools
Monday (January 12)
Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford [Oxfordshire]; New York: Clarendon Press, 1982), 1-68.
Wednesday (January 14)
Wael B. Hallaq, “Was al-Shafii the Master Architect of Islamic Jurisprudence?,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 25, no. 4 (November 1, 1993): 587–605.
Jonathan E. Brockopp, “Early Islamic Jurisprudence in Egypt: Two Scholars and Their Mukhtasars,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 30, no. 2 (1998): 167–182.
Week 3: Authenticity of the ḥadīth Literature
Monday (January 19)
Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Corr. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 138–89
Wednesday (January 21)
G. H. A Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance, and Authorship of Early Hadith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 9–39.
Wael B Hallaq, “Logic, Formal Arguments and Formalization of Arguments in Sunnī Jurisprudicne,” Arabica 37, no. 3 (1990): 315-58.
Week 4: Legal Theory: Qur’an, Sunna, Consensus, Analogy, Istihsan, Istislah I
Monday (January 26)
Wael B Hallaq, Sharīʻa: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 72-124.
Wael B Hallaq, “The Authenticity of Prophetic Hadîth: A Pseudo-Problem,” Studia Islamica 1999, no. 89 (1999): 75–90.
Wednesday (January 28)
Opwis, Felicitas. “Islamic Law and Legal Change: The Concept of Maṣlaḥa in Classical and Contemporary Islamic Legal Theory.” In: Sharīʿa: Islamic Law in the Contemporary Context, ed. Frank Griffel and Abbas Amanat. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007, p. 62-82.
Wael B. Hallaq, “On the Authoritativeness of Sunni Consensus,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, no. 4 (1986): 427–454.
Week 5: The ijtihād Controversy
Monday (February 2)
Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford [Oxfordshire]; New York: Clarendon Press, 1982), 69-88.
Wael B. Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16:1 (1984): 3–41.
Wednesday (February 4)
Norman Calder, “Al-Nawawī’s Typology of Muftīs and Its Significance for a General Theory of Islamic Law,” Islamic Law and Society 3:2 (1996): 137-64.
Yossef Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlīd: The Four Chief Qādīs under the Mamluks,” Islamic Law and Society 10:2 (2003): 210-28.
Week 6: Taqlid and Pragmatic Eclecticism
Monday (February 9) Reflection papers due today
Mohammad Fadel, “The Social Logic of Taqlīd and the Rise of the Mukhataṣar,” Islamic Law and Society 3, no. 2 (1996): 193–233.
Wednesday (February 11)
Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim, “Al-Shʿrānī’s Response to Legal Purism: A Theory of Legal Pluralism,” Islamic Law and Society 20:1-2 (2013): 110-40.
Week 7: Legal Practice and Procedure
Monday (February 16)
Wael B. Hallaq, “From Fatwas to Furu: Growth and Change in Islamic Substantive Law,” Islamic Law and Society 1, no. 1 (1994): 29–65.
Tyon, E. “Judicial Organization.” In: Law in the Middle East, ed. Majid Khadduri and H. J. Liebesny (Washington, DC: The Middle East Institute, 1955), pp. 236-78.
Wednesday (February 18)
Ron Shaham, “Jews and the Shari’a Courts in Modern Egypt,” Studia Islamica 1995, no. 82 (1995): 113–136.
Ron Shaham, “Judicial Divorce at the Wife’s Initiative: The Sharia Courts of Egypt, 1920-1955,” Islamic Law and Society 1, no. 2 (1994): 217–257.
Week 8: The Sweep of modernity I
Monday (February 23)
Wael B. Hallaq, Sharīʻa: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 357-430.
Wednesday (February 25)
Wael B. Hallaq, Sharīʻa: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 430-500.
March 2-6 – Break
Week 9: The Sweep of Modernity II
Monday (March 9) Exam
Wednesday (March 11): Commercial, Criminal law
Rudolph Peters, “Islamic and Secular Criminal Law in Nineteenth Century Egypt: The Role and Function of the Qadi,” Islamic Law and Society 4, no. 1 (January 1, 1997): 70–90.
Rudolph Peters, “The Islamization of Criminal Law: A Comparative Analysis,” Die Welt des Islams 34, no. 2 (1994): 246–274. Week 10: Islamic law and Human rights
Monday (March 16) Final paper outline + intro due today.
Abdullahi A An-Na’im, “Religious Minorities under Islamic Law and the Limits of Cultural Relativism,” Human Rights Quarterly 9, no. 1 (1987): 1–18.
The nineteenth Islamic Conference of foreign ministers. Cairo declaration of Human rights in Islam, 1990: 1-9. http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/cairodeclaration.html
Wednesday (March 18): In-class documentary on Islam in Canada http://www.nfb.ca/film/sharia_in_canada_part_1
Khaled Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities: The Juristic Discourse on Muslim Minorities from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth Centuries,” Islamic Law and Society 1, no. 2 (January 1, 1994): 141– 187.
Week 11: The search for an overlapping consensus
Monday (March 23) Final paper, as well as a one-page summary due today.
Islam in Canada documentary: http://www.nfb.ca/film/sharia_in_canada_part_2
Andrew March, “Sources of Moral Obligation to non-Muslims in the ‘Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities’ Discourse,” Islamic Law and Society 16, no. 1 (2009): 34–94.
Wednesday (March 25)
Andrew March, “The Post-Legal Ethics of Tariq Ramadan: Persuasion and Performance in,” Middle East Law and Governance 2, no. 2 (2010): 253–273.
A. F March, “Islamic Foundations for a Social Contract in non-Muslim Liberal Democracies,” AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 101, no. 2 (2007): 235–252.
Week 12: Documentary on Islamic Law in Nigeria
Monday (March 30)
Watch at home: documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reYH32VU8fY
Wael B. Hallaq, “Can the Shari‘a Be Restored?,” in Islamic Law and the Challenge of Modernity, ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Barbara Freyer Stowasser (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004), 21-53.
Wednesday (April 1): Final paper discussions
Students’ papers will be divided into 5-6 themes and we will have class discussions (not presentations due to class size) of the themes and findings.
Week 13: Monday -Wednesday (April 6-8): Final paper discussions
University Honor System and Students’ Rights
McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/ for more information). L'université McGill attache une haute importance à l’honnêteté académique. Il incombe par conséquent à tous les étudiants de comprendre ce que l'on entend par tricherie, plagiat et autres infractions académiques, ainsi que les conséquences que peuvent avoir de telles actions, selon le Code de conduite de l'étudiant et des procédures disciplinaires (pour de plus amples renseignements, veuillez consulter le site www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/). In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded. Conformément à la Charte des droits de l’étudiant de l’Université McGill, chaque étudiant a le droit de soumettre en français ou en anglais tout travail écrit devant être noté (sauf dans le cas des cours dont l’un des objets est la maîtrise d’une langue).