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ISLA 670: Islamic Law Professor Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim Fall 2013

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ISLA 670: Islamic Law Professor Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim Fall 2013 ISLA 670: Islamic Law Professor Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim Fall 2013 Course description Islamic Law is an advanced examination of research issues in the field of Islamic law, which will use both secondary scholarship on Islamic law, as well as Islamic legal writings by jurists, court scribes and modern legislators. Topics will include a discussion of the origins of Islamic law and some challenges posed to the authenticity of its foundational texts. In addition to juristic discourse, we will discuss legal practice both in the premodern and modern periods. The course will be concluded with a discussion of modernity and its attendant discourses and challenges to the Islamic legal tradition. Course Requirements and Evaluation 20% Participation: All students are expected to finish their readings and participate effectively in class discussions. 20% Reflection Paper: Students will be required to write a reflection paper on a theme of their choice. Reflection papers should address the debates the authors are engaging, and the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments, as well as posing questions for the class to discuss. 30% Final Paper: Students are required to write a typed 20-page paper (double-spaced, 12-point font, one-inch margins) on a topic related to the course readings. Students are expected to present a paper outline to be approved by the professor. Students are required to present their findings to their classmates in the last week of classes. Students are to submit a 1-2 page summary of their paper, outlining their sources and argument to the rest of the class. 30% Presentations: Students are expected to provide long 45-minute presentations of books that will be assigned by the professor, as well as a rotating system of presentation of the other readings to be explained by the professor. Students are required to provide the rest of the class with printed outlines, summarizing the author’s argument and his/her methodology and sources, as well as a critique of the work. Presentations will be followed by Q and A. Class Policies • You are allowed only one unexcused absence; the second unexcused absence will reduce your class participation grade by one level (e.g. A to A-). • 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. 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). Required Books (available at the bookstore and on reserve) • ISLA 670 Coursepack • Yasin Dutton, The origins of Islamic law : the Quran, the Muwatta and Madinan `Amal (Surrey, England: Curzon, 1999). • Kristen Stilt, Islamic Law in Action: Authority, Discretion, and Everyday Experiences in Mamluk Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2012). • Ron Shaham, The expert witness in Islamic courts medicine and crafts in the service of law (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2010). • Elyse Semerdjian, “Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse University Press, 2008). • Andrew F March, Islam and liberal citizenship the search for an overlapping consensus (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). Books on Reserve ISLA 670 Coursepack Yasin Dutton, The origins of Islamic law : the Quran, the Muwatta and Madinan `Amal (Surrey, England: Curzon, 1999). Norman Calder, Studies in early Muslim jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). John Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation (Edinburgh University Press, 1990). Kristen Stilt, Islamic Law in Action: Authority, Discretion, and Everyday Experiences in Mamluk Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2012). Ron Shaham, The expert witness in Islamic courts medicine and crafts in the service of law (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2010). Elyse Semerdjian, “Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse University Press, 2008). Mahmoud A El-Gamal, Islamic finance : law, economics, and practice (Cambridge [UK]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Andrew F March, Islam and liberal citizenship the search for an overlapping consensus (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). Wael B Hallaq, Sharīʻa: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 355-370, 443-550. Part I: THE FORMATIVE PERIOD Week 1 Wednesday September 4, Introduction to the course. Week 2 (Sept. 11): Origins (intro) Yasin Dutton, The origins of Islamic law : the Quran, the Muwatta and Madinan `Amal (Surrey, England: Curzon, 1999), pps. 1-119. Presentation: Yasin Dutton, The origins of Islamic law : the Quran, the Muwatta and Madinan `Amal (Surrey, England: Curzon, 1999). Week 3 (Sept. 18): Authenticity of foundational texts Malik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ, part of the section on divorce (available online http://www.waqfeya.com/book.php?bid=3579), pps. 550-570. Week 4 (September 25): Authenticity of foundational texts Behnam Sadeghi, “The Authenticity of Two 2nd/8th Century Hanafi Legal Texts: The Kitab al- Āthār and al-Muwaṭṭa’ of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī,” Islamic Law and Society 17 (2010) 291-319. Wael Hallaq, "On Dating Malik's Muwatta," UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law, 2001, 2, 1, 47-65. Christopher Melchert, “Qur’ānic Abrogation Across the Ninth Century: Shāfiʿī Abu ʿUbayd, Muḥāsibī, and Ibn Qutaybah,” in Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, ed. Bernard G Weiss (Leiden; Boston [Mass.]: Brill, 2002), 75-98. Christopher Melchert, “Occasional papers of the School of Abbasid Studies,” in Occasional papers of the School of Abbasid Studies, ed. James E. Montgomery, 2004, 277–301. Joseph E. Lowry, “Occasional papers of the School of Abbasid Studies,” in Occasional papers of the School of Abbasid Studies, ed. James E. Montgomery, 2004, 303–319. 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. Ahmed El Shamsy, “Al-Shafi’i’s Written Corpus: A Source-Critical Study,” The Journal of the American Oriental Society 132, no. 2 (April 1, 2012): 199-220. This article is not in the coursepack. Week 5 (Oct. 2): the Foundational texts Shaybānī’s narration of the Muwaṭṭaʾ (pps. 173-93), available online at: http://search.4shared.com/postDownload/4PTAp7rV/mrmhs.html Week 6 (Oct. 9): Was al-Shāfiʿī the founder of legal theory? 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. Christopher Melchert, “Traditionist-Jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law,” Islamic Law and Society 8, no. 3 (January 1, 2001): 383–406. Ahmed El Shamsy, “The First Shafii: The Traditionalist Legal Thought of Abu Ya qub al- Buwayti (d. 231/846),” Islamic Law and Society 14, no. 3 (2007): 301–341. Ahmed El Shamsy, “Rethinking Taqlīd in the Early Shāfiʿī School,” Journal of the American Oriental Society. 128, no. 1 (2008): 1. Scott Lucas, “The Legal Principles of Muhammad b.Ismail al-Bukhari and their Relationship to Classical Salafi Islam,” Islamic Law and Society 13, no. 3 (2006): 289–324. Week 7 (Oct. 16): Al-Shafiʿī’s al-Risāla Reflection paper due today Al-Shāfiʿī’s al-Risāla (pps. 357-87, starts with Bāb al-ʿIlm), available at: http://www.waqfeya.com/book.php?bid=485 Week 8 (Oct. 23): Al-Muzanī’s Mukhtaṣar Al-Muzanī’s Mukhtaṣar (pps. 250-65, Kitāb al-Khulʿ), available at: http://www.waqfeya.com/book.php?bid=1183 Week 9 (Oct. 30): Islamic Legal Practice in the Premodern Period I Rudolph Peters, “What Does It Mean to Be an Official Madhhab?,” in The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress, ed. Peri Bearman, Rudolph Peters, and Frank E Vogel, Harvard Series in Islamic Law 2 (Cambridge, Mass: Islamic Legal Studies Program, HarvardLaw School : Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2005). Elyse Semerdjian, “Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse University Press, 2008). Week 10 (November 6): Final paper outline due today Kristen Stilt, Islamic Law in Action: Authority, Discretion, and Everyday Experiences in Mamluk Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2012), 1-106. Week 11 (Nov. 13): Islamic Law in the modern period: Family law and commercial law A selection of Arabic readings from modern Egyptian family laws including Law No. 1 of 2000. Oussama Arabi, “The Dawning of the Third Millennium on Shari’a: Egypt’s Law No. 1 of 2000, or Women May Divorce at Will,” Arab Law Quarterly 16, no. 1 (January 1, 2001): 2–21. Rudolph Peters, “From Jurists’ Law to Statute Law or What Happens When the Shariʿa is Codified,” MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS -LONDON- FRANK CASS- 7 (2002): 82–95.
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