Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought

Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History This groundbreaking series, edited by one of the most influential scholars of Islamic law, presents a cumulative and progressive set of original contributions that substantially raises the bar for rigorous scholarship in the field of Islamic Studies. By relying on original sources and challenging common scholarly stereotypes and inherited wisdoms, the volumes of the series attest to the exacting and demanding methodological and pedagogical standards necessary for contemporary studies of Islam. These volumes are chosen not only for their disciplined methodology, exhaustive research, or academic authoritativeness, but also for their ability to make critical interventions in the process of understanding the world of Islam as it was, is, and is likely to become. They make central and even pivotal contributions to understanding the experience of the lived and living Islam, and the ways that this rich and creative Islamic tradition has been created and uncreated, or constructed, decon- structed, and reconstructed. In short, the volumes of this series are chosen for their great relevance to the many realities that shaped the ways that Muslims understand, represent, and practice their religion, and ultimately, to understanding the worlds that Muslims helped to shape, and in turn, the worlds that helped shape Muslims.

Series Editor: K h a l e d A b o u E l F a d l is the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law, and Chair of the Islamic Studies Program at UCLA. Dr. Abou El Fadl received the University of Oslo Human Rights Award, the Leo and Lisl Eitinger Prize in 2007, and was named a Carnegie Scholar in Islamic Law in 2005. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on Islamic law and Islam, and a prominent scholar in the field of human rights.

Titles Custom in Islamic Law and Legal Theory: The Development of the Concepts of `Urf and `Adah in the Islamic Legal Tradition Ayman Shabana The Islamic Law of War: Justifications and Regulations Ahmed Al-Dawoody Shi’i Jurisprudence and Constitution: Revolution in Iran Amirhassan Boozari Constructing a Religiously Ideal “Believer” and “Woman” in Islam: Neo-traditional Salafi and Progressive Muslims’ Methods of Interpretation Adis Duderija Fatigue of the Shari’a Ahmad Atif Ahmad Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought: Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi Edited by Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought

Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi

Edited by

MICHAEL COOK , NAJAM HAIDER, INTISAR RABB, AND ASMA S AYEED LAW AND TRADITION IN CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THOUGHT Copyright © Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed, 2013. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 All rights reserved. First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-29507-4 ISBN 978-1-137-07895-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-07895-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cook, Michael. Law and tradition in classical Islamic thought : studies in honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi / Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, Asma Sayeed. pages cm.—(Palgrave series in Islamic theology, law, and history) 1. Islamic law—Interpretation and construction. 2. Modarressi Tabataba’i, Hossein. 3. Islamic law—History. 4. Islamic law—Philosophy. 5. Shi’ah—Doctrines. I. Haider, Najam Iftikhar, 1974– II. Rabb, Intisar A. III. Sayeed, Asma. IV. Title. KBP440.74.C66 2012 340.5Ј909—dc23 2012002453 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: January 2013 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Transferred to Digital Printing in 2013 C o n t e n t s

List of Figures and Tables vii Acknowledgments ix Series Editor Preface xi Introduction xiii

Part I Source Studies 1 The Abū Bas.īr Tradition: Qurʾānic Verses on the Merits of the Shīʿa 3 Etan Kohlberg 2 Criteria for Emending the Text of the Qurʾā n 2 1 Behnam Sadeghi 3 M u ʿāwiya in the H. ijāz : The Study of a Tradition 43 Najam Haider

Part II Shīʿī Tradition 4 T h e Kitāb al-was.iyya of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād: The History of a Text 67 Hassan F. Ansari 5 Women in Imāmī Biographical Collections 81 Asma Sayeed 6 Why Incline to the Left in Prayer? Sectarianism, Dialectic, and Archaeology in Imāmī Shīʿi s m 9 9 Michael Cook

Part III Islamic Legal Traditions 7 Dissent and Uncertainty in the Process of Legal Norm Construction in Muslim Sunnī Law 127 Baber Johansen vi Contents

8 Islamic Legal Minimalism: Legal Maxims and Lawmaking When Jurists Disappear 145 Intisar A. Rabb 9 Cultivating Human Rights: Islamic Law and the Humanist Imperative 167 Khaled Abou El Fadl

Part IV Philosophical Traditions 1 0 Y a h.yā b. ʿAdī’s Discussion of the Prolegomena to the Study of a Philosophical Text 187 Robert Wisnovsky 11 Two Commentaries on Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī’s al-Shamsiyya, Copied in the Hand of David b. Joshua Maimonides (fl. ca. 1335–1410 CE ) 203 Sabine Schmidtke 1 2 L o g i c i n t h e K h a y r ā b ā d ī S c h o o l o f I n d i a : A Preliminary Exploration 227 Asad Q. Ahmed

Part V Historical Traditions 13 The Eastern Travels of Solomon: Reimagining Persepolis and the Iranian Past 247 Roy P. Mottahedeh 1 4 A l - H. asan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī on the Views of Astronomers and Astrologers 269 Wilferd Madelung 1 5 C o n v e r s i o n a n d L a w : A M u s l i m - C h r i s t i a n C o m p a r i s o n 2 7 9 Richard W. Bulliet

Part VI The Scholarly Output of Professor Hossein Modarressi Bibliography of Works by Professor Hossein Modarressi 293 Compiled by Intisar A. Rabb and Hassan F. Ansari A Bibliographical Note on the Persian Works 301 Hossein Kamaly

Contributors 3 0 5 Index 3 1 1 Figures and Tables

F i g u r e s

2.1 Number of Roots Occurring a Certain Number of Times 23 2.2 Flowchart of Variant Readings of Q6.57 25 6.1 The Boundaries of the Meccan Sanctuary with Directions to Qat.ar and Ku¯fa 102 6.2 The Kaʿba and the Center of the Sanctuary from a Point about 8 Miles from the Boundary in the Direction of Qat.a r 1 0 3 11.1 Plate I: MS Firkovitch Yevr.-Arab. II 812, f. 7b 225 11.2 Plate II: MS Firkovitch Yevr.-Arab. II 812, f. 7a 226 12.1 Tree I: Sample of Relevant Logicians and Logical Works from al-T. ūsī to the Farangī Mah.allīs 232 12.2 Tree II: Sample of Relevant Farangī Mah.allī Logicians and Logical Works 233 12.3 Tree III: Sample of Relevant Khayrābādī Logicians and Logical Works 235 1 5 . 1 C o n v e r s i o n t o I s l a m i n I r a n 2 8 1 1 5 . 2 H y p o t h e t i c a l C o n v e r s i o n R a t e t o C h r i s t i a n i t y 2 8 4

T a b l e s

1.1 The Verses and Their Position in the Abū Bas.īr Tradition 7 6.1 Chart of Distances from the Boundary of the Sanctuary to Mecca on Various Roads 101 Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and its chair, M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, for their generous financial support of this project. We would like to express special thanks to Amineh Mahallati for her help and suggestions for the cover art and support of the project; to Roy Mottahedeh for his contributions to the cover art, his help in composing the introduction, and his general contributions to and support of the project; and to Sheila Canby, Jeri Wagner, and Julie Zeftel at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for granting per- mission to use the cover art. We also express our gratitude to Wilferd Madelung, Andras Hamori, and Tariq al-Jamil for their helpful contributions to the introduction. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge our debt to Khaled Abou El Fadl, the editor for the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History, as well as to Burke Gerstenschlager, Kaylan Connally, and Katherine Haigler at Palgrave Macmillan, for their work in bringing the current volume to press. Series Editor Preface

This is the first edited collection of scholarly studies to be published in the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. It is a volume that I take great pride in introducing to the readers of the series. This single volume includes articles by some of the most prominent scholars in the field of Islamic Studies, covering a broad array of topics in Islamic theology, philosophy, law, and history. In many ways, the collection contained in this book represents an illuminatingly informa- tive survey of some of the most compelling scholarship being done in the Western academy in the field of Islamic Studies. The editors of this book have already written an introduction setting out the contributions made by each author, and I dare not burden the reader by repeating the same information. Read cover to cover, this volume will leave its readers with a sense of having been treated to an enlightening and enjoyable engagement with the Islamic tradition. This collection is distinctive not just because of the range and significance of the topics treated, but also because of the unparalleled caliber of the scholars contributing to the work. The articles in this volume are model examples of the kind of serious and rigorous scholarship so urgently needed in the field of Islamic Studies. The contributors to this volume are some of the most illustrious and renowned scholars in their respective fields. This by itself makes the present collection attrac- tive to any series editor, and makes this book indispensable to any worthwhile library as well as to all serious students of Islam. But further to this, the prominence of the contributors is a notable testament to the importance and eminence of the scholar being honored: Professor Hossein Modarressi of Princeton University. This is another reason why I take special pride in introducing this volume to the readers of this series. I have the privilege and honor of being one of Modarressi’s many admirers, students, and disciples. I can attest to the profound impact that this stoic, soft-spoken, brilliant, and masterful sage of the Islamic tradition has had upon all those who have had the good fortune of studying under or working with him. Modarressi’s profound humility and ethical probity is matched only by his encyclopedic knowledge, unparalleled scholarship, generosity, and kindness. Considering the weight and extent of his impact upon the field of Islamic Studies, this volume is a fitting, but relatively modest, acknowledgment of his achievements and his legacy. Aside from considerations of fidelity and admiration, it is fitting for the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History to honor Modarressi because of what he and this series represent. Through his teaching and writings, Modarressi truly epitomizes the realization of the scholarly standards that this series was created to xii Series Editor Preface uphold. As all those who are familiar with his work will readily attest, Modarressi’s scholarship sets a standard that is truly hard to follow, but his never-ending quest for learning and investigation is infectious and inspirational. The authors in this collection have all been touched and inspired by Modarressi’s works, and regardless of whether they are able to uphold the same standards, without a doubt, Modarressi’s legacy lives on in every article included in this volume. And for that, this volume represents a very special event in the history of the series. Both the contributors and the honoree enhance the reputation and mission of this series.

Khaled Abou El Fadl Los Angeles, California N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 1 I n t r o d u c t i o n

Hossein Modarressi’s scholarly path has traversed three centers of academic excel- lence: Qum, Oxford, and Princeton. He started in the “seminary” ( h. awza) system in the Iranian city of Qum, where he received a complete traditional education in the classical Islamic sciences, with a focus on Islamic philosophy, theology, and law. He also pursued a modern secular education in state schools, at the University of Tehran, and elsewhere, culminating in a PhD in Islamic law from Oxford University. It is rare that one person can master disciplines and make key contributions in such disparate worlds. Professor Modarressi’s command of scholarship and assistance to scholars in each makes him truly exceptional. As a jurist and a historian of Islamic law, his expertise is well recognized in Iran’s scholarly circles and unparalleled in the Western academy. If the former arena offers scholarly breadth and the latter critical depth, it is fair to say that Professor Modarressi has succeeded in combining the two with his keen acumen to achieve a three-dimensional grasp of Islamic law and tradition. We might even say that his long-practiced expertise has produced a further dimension: the scholarly intuition arising from sustained, comparative study and engagement with these two academic worlds. He effortlessly exhibits a sharp sense of what scholars in the legal context have referred to as the spirit or “taste” of the law ( dhawq al-sharīʿa). And he has managed to spread an appreciation of that taste to others. This volume brings together the work of a small number of Professor Modarressi’s students and colleagues from his time in Europe and the United States in acknowledgment of the enormous impact that he has had on so many scholarly trajectories. The encounter between the two worlds in which Modarressi made his mark begins in Iran. Modarressi was a scholar who, already in 1977, had reached the highest levels of training in Iran’s traditional educational system, and he was a well- known historian of Iran. He had long been interested in Western scholarship as well as that of the rest of the Muslim world, and his curiosity led him to intellectually engage with scholars globally. On a visit there that year, Roy Mottahedeh met him at a history conference in Hamadan, attended by local and Western historians. The two became instant friends. Modarressi offered to help obtain manuscripts for this historian from America who had limited ability to access many of the documents and histories abundant in Iran (a generous tradition that Modarressi would con- tinue with his future colleagues as well). The two would develop a lasting scholarly exchange and enduring friendship. Sometime later, Modarressi decided to pursue a higher degree from a Western institution. Though Mottahedeh was then at Princeton—known for its program xiv Introduction of Islamic Studies—he felt that he was not qualified to instruct his friend. Instead, Modarressi chose to attend St. Antony’s College at Oxford University. There, he worked with Wilferd Madelung to complete his doctorate in 1983. Yet, even Madelung hardly considered himself a teacher to Modarressi, who was already a recognized Islamic law scholar upon arrival at Oxford and received, during his time there, increased recognition from the scholars of Iran. True to form, Modarressi’s dissertation on kharāj (land tax) was a model of exhaustive research, covering the doctrines of all sects and schools in the Islamic tradition. Modarressi arrived at Princeton as a visiting professor in 1986 and was tenured the next year. He was a teacher’s teacher. Unfailingly collegial and helpful to his new peers, he devoted time to reading their drafts and improved them in fundamental ways. On occasion, he offered lengthy comments written around the margins of an ill-drafted page in mouse-tail style ( dum-i mūsh), invariably revealing new per- spectives and sources for the particular issue at hand. It was also commonplace for Modarressi to offer gentle caveats that saved his colleagues and students from embarrassing errors in their teaching or research. More often than not, these caveats would begin with a delicately generous, “As you know . . . . ” Though not intended ironically, this preamble was inevitably registered as such in the conscience of the beneficiary. His grasp of the Islamic tradition was so extensive that one colleague would remark—only partially tongue-in-cheek—that he felt “lucky to have some colleagues who know an awful lot about many things, and one colleague who knows everything.” As a devoted teacher, Modarressi deploys his encyclopedic memory along with his deeply analytic mind for the benefit of his students in other ways as well. In preparation for classes, he typically mines the sources and consults colleagues for readings to offer the best translations and analyses, and to set the tone for instruc- tive conversations. In some respects, he also learns from his students insofar as their interests have drawn him into new fields, which he takes care to master in order to teach. One of his most remarkable qualities is his exacting standards as a teacher. Students often recall their trepidation about submitting work to a professor whose knowledge of their chosen subject far surpasses what they hope to gain in a life- time. Yet, his advising exhibits patience alongside exacting conscientiousness. For his advanced students, he teaches seminars tailored to their interests and labors through the lengthy prose and footnotes of their dissertations. Predictably, he prods them to be critical of the sources, expansive in scope, and cognizant of interdisci- plinary links. Modarressi’s intellectual and pedagogical contributions have taken shape in the context of teaching and research appointments at several institutions over the past quarter-century. In addition to his position as Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, he has served as Mahdi Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia and as the Golestaneh Fellow in Islamic Studies at St. Antony’s College at Oxford. He has also taught at Yale Law School, at Harvard Law School, and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His presence as a teacher, scholar, and mentor in these institutions has itself helped to transform the field of Islamic Studies. It has become a field that recognizes the importance of the full landscape of early Islamic Introduction xv history and law—including parallel developments in what would evolve into Sunnī, Shīʿī, and Khārijī contexts. To be sure, while the focal points of his own scholarship have been in Islamic law and Shīʿī tradition—whence the title of this volume—the range of his knowledge and teaching extends far beyond the contexts of law and Shīʿism. Furthermore, marking Modarressi’s scholarly method is an approach that takes stock of a wide range of early sources, without presupposing the inevitability of its outcomes. To this approach and to his scholarly achievements he joins the virtues of generosity and humility. Through executing stellar scholarship, he has exerted considerable influence on the field, distinguishing him as a scholar-teacher of towering intellect and of magisterial scope.

* * *

When he arrived at Princeton, Modarressi had already published extensively—writing in Persian, Arabic, and English—and he has continued to publish prolifically ever since. A list of his numerous and wide-ranging publications is included at the end of this volume. His publications are in Persian before 1980, and shift to include contributions in English, beginning with the appearance of Kharāj in Islamic Law in 1983. Some of his early writings discuss regional and political history, many of them meticulously documenting the religious landscapes, monuments, and families of Qum across the centuries. Two major contributions in particular, Qum dar qarn-i nuhum-i hijrī, 801–900: Fas.lī az kitāb-i Qum dar chahārdah qarn (Qum in the 9th/15th Century: A Chapter in the Fourteen-Century-Long History of Qum) along with Turbat-i pākān: Āthār va bināhā-yi qadīm-i mah. dūda-yi kunūnī-yi dār al-muʾminīn-i Qum (Blessed Grounds: Edifices Lying within the Contemporary Limits of the City of Qum, Abode of the Faithful), provide indispensable works of reference. Taken together, these articles and monographs on Qum attest to Modarressi’s regard for this city as a longtime center of intellectual life in the Muslim world. Further, Modarressi and a number of his Iranian friends and colleagues, among them the late Iraj Afshar, avidly collected inscriptions, and deciphered and interpreted obscure texts in manuscripts. They also composed sophisticated local histories, thereby furthering nuanced scholarship on the sociopolitical, economic, and intellectual history of Iran. Modarressi’s anno- tated editions and analyses of Safavid-era diplomatic correspondence, decrees, and endowment deeds also confirm his sustained attention to the multiple elements of text and context that make up the narratives of history. These works in turn provide keys to uncovering broader trends in disparate areas of research, from Persian administrative history to the arts of letter-writing in the sixth/twelfth century. While Modarressi’s Persian contributions in the field of Iranian history remain untranslated, a number of his influential English monographs on Shīʿī studies and law have been published in Persian. The availability of this scholarship in Persian is a significant development that allows the fruits of Modarressi’s career in the West to be harvested in the land where his intellectual journey began. Over the last 25 years, Modarressi’s scholarly interests expanded in a number of directions. With his first book in English, Kharāj in Islamic Law, Modarressi substantially changed the landscape of studies in Islamic law and tradition in the xvi Introduction

West. He shifted from the regional and political histories of his early career to English writings revolving around broader themes of Islamic law and Shīʿī tradition, with excursions into Qurʾānic studies, history, and theology. In that first work, he deals comprehensively with the highly charged issues of early Islamic taxation. His Introduction to Shī ʿ ī Law (1984) provides an indispensable reference point for students and other researchers interested in the study of Shīʿī law. In it, he offers frameworks for analysis of Shīʿī law by depicting distinct periods of intellectual activity and political reality in ways that move beyond a reductive discussion of “early” and “late” periods. In particular, he outlines the development of key legal doctrines along themes of rationalism and traditionalism from the earliest periods of Islamic legal writing until today. In “Some Recent Analyses of the Concept of Majāz in Islamic Jurisprudence” (1986), he identifies ways in which Muslim scholars draw on insights from Arabic linguistics in their use of figurative language in legal interpretation. In each of these contexts, one of Modarressi’s most important contributions lies in broadening the scope of scholarly research in the West. His work takes for granted that serious scholarship must address the views of all Muslim groups that have left us literary records of their intellectual and other activity. In taking on some of the most challenging and controversial topics in the field, Modarressi has also highlighted the diversity of early Islamic historical writings and jurisprudential thought, both Sunnī and Shīʿī. Often, his contributions docu- ment the way in which later understandings inverted earlier ones. “Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qurʾān” (1993) draws on varied historical evidence to illustrate polemical uses of h . adīth literature and to investigate the question whether early Muslims believed the Qurʾān as collected in the time of ʿUthmān to be complete. Crisis and Consolidation (1993) surveys early legal, theological, and political sources to comment on similarly important questions about the nature of leadership in the collective memory of the early Shīʿī community. The latter work remains among his most significant and influential publications. Modarressi’s scholarship is further distinguished by his efforts to present the sources themselves. His latest book, Tradition and Survival (2003), brings together decades of meticulous collection and analysis of written Shīʿī heritage dating to the first three centuries, that is, from the time of ʿAlī to the end of the Minor Occultation (329/941). Far more than a bibliographic survey, this work sifts through thousands of sources to point out the most influential contributions of earlier scholars and show the impact of each on shaping Shīʿī law and tradition; it also draws attention to turning points in law and theology. This is a work whose writing became possible only after decades of meticulous collection, research, and analysis. Already, this work has established itself as an indispensable reference, providing a starting point and methodological resource for any work on Shīʿī law and tradition. In significant respects, Modarressi’s writings have connected a millennial scholarly tradition in the Muslim world with the much younger one of Islamic Studies in Europe and America, where the field has achieved prominence only in the last two centuries. Early researchers in the West labored with scant access to the sources and inadequate analytical tools for a thorough treatment of the complex history of Islamic law and tradition. Modarressi has worked with a far richer array of Introduction xvii sources—for example, identifying for the first time in Tradition and Survival Shīʿī texts traceable through multiple written records to periods beginning as early as the first/seventh century. This was akin to discovering long-lost ruins of a civiliza- tion about which archeologists had believed all traces to have long since perished. Thanks to Modarressi’s reconstitutions, we can now discern the topography of the city and even hear echoes of the conversations of its inhabitants.

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Unusually for a Festschrift, the contributors to the present volume represent three generations of scholars. A substantial number were graduate students at Princeton, where they had the distinction of being Modarressi’s pupils; some were also his PhD advisees. A second group of contributors have been his colleagues at Princeton and elsewhere; some are his contemporaries, some are junior scholars whose careers he has advanced in more ways than one. The third and most senior generation is repre- sented by a single scholar, Wilferd Madelung. His presence in this volume gives us particular pleasure: it is rare indeed for a Festschrift to include a contribution by the PhD adviser of the honoree. The first part of this volume is devoted to the study of early sources, a subject at the core of much of Modarressi’s scholarly output. Etan Kohlberg examines a tradition preserving an encounter between the sixth Imām, Jaʿfar al-S.ādiq, and one of his students, the Kūfan traditionist Abū Bas.īr. Tracing the growing prominence of the account in early Shīʿī literature, Kohlberg argues that the account was central to the formation of a distinctive Shīʿī identity. Behnam Sadeghi focuses on the text of the Qurʾān itself, evaluating claims of early emendations to the text. And Najam Haider traces the disparate portrayals of the first Umayyad caliph, Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān, in the Sunnī sources and the subsequent use of one particular tradition in Muslim legal polemics pertaining to the ritual prayer. The second part turns to the Shī‘ī tradition, the scholarly area most associated with Modarressi’s output. Hassan Ansari examines the history of a short work attributed to ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād on the subject of the was.iyya, which classical sources conceived as referring to the Prophet’s designation of ʿAlī as both his successor and the first Imām. Asma Sayeed examines representations of female h.adīth transmitters and scholars in selected Imāmī biographical literature. She highlights differences between Imāmī and Sunnī patterns in women’s religious education, concluding that varying “social cultures” associated with h.adīth transmission are largely responsible for the differences noted. Michael Cook concludes the section by tackling a thorny problem that stems from Shīʿī traditions prescribing tayāsur (inclining to the left) in the direction of the prayer. In the course of his analysis, Cook finds an example of early modern antiquarianism in a Shīʿī setting. The contributions in Part Three cover Islamic legal traditions and address controversies surrounding varied legal methodologies in different contexts. Baber Johansen traces traditions of legal pluralism and dissent in us.ūl al-fiqh (jurisprudential) discussions, highlighting the construction of legal norms in novel cases. Through an analysis of the works of Muslim jurists writing at the height of the xviii Introduction era of systematization of Islamic jurisprudence, he draws attention to the human element of “contemplation ( taʾammul)” that these jurists insisted was necessary for law to be a continuing and evolving enterprise. Intisar Rabb likewise examines legal norms, considering an intriguing hypothetical first proposed by Muslim jurists writing during the same period of systematization: What would happen if all jurists disappeared? She uses the thought experiment to consider attitudes concerning the core requirements for an Islamic legal tradition and to draw paral- lels between Imāmī Shīʿī law in the aftermath of the greater Occultation, Sunnī law in the absence of jurists, and American law in a regime of “legal minimalism.” In a different vein, Khaled Abou El Fadl explores the intersections and tensions between the universal human rights tradition and the Islamic legal tradition. He makes the case that while each of them constructs normative, expansive world- views with goals concerning human welfare, on close examination, the two are not mutually exclusive. Part Four takes up the Islamic philosophical tradition. Robert Wisnovsky presents a description, transcription, and translation of a philosophical work by the fourth/tenth-century Christian philosopher Yah.yā b. ʿAdī that was previously thought lost. This text offers a pedagogical guide to the organization and purpose of studying philosophical works in that era. Sabine Schmidtke highlights intersections between Jewish and Islamic thought in logic and philosophy from the “late” (post- sixth/twelfth century) period through a study of the writings of David Maimonides. Through an analysis of holdings on logic in the Firkovitch Collection at the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, Schmitdke presents writings on logic also otherwise thought lost. Finally, Asad Ahmed traces the development of logic in the Indian scholarly context, focusing specifically on the Khayrābādī tradition. His study maps the overlapping and cross-cutting links between Indian scholars on logic over a span of nearly 700 years. The fifth and final part comprises historical studies. Roy Mottahedeh traces the symbolic association of the Prophet Solomon with notions of power and prestige in the Persian and Islamic traditions. Specifically, he draws out the ways in which the preservation and transformation of Persian pre-Islamic monuments informed Islamic historical memory. Wilferd Madelung details the place of astronomers and astrologers in the broader intellectual spectrum of the third/ninth-century Muslim world through an analysis of the writings of al-H. asan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī, as preserved by the Muʿtazilī scholar, Ibn al-Malāh.imī. Finally, Richard Bulliet builds on his earlier work on the impact of conversion on Muslim social institutions with an analysis of the relationship between conversion rates and the development of legal systems in Islam and Christianity. A bibliography of Modarressi’s writings concludes the volume. This is followed by Hossein Kamaly’s short essay on Modarressi’s Persian scholarship. We include this to acquaint his European and American readership with a corpus of his writings to which they are less likely to have immediate access and to call attention to this important facet of Modarressi’s scholarly contributions. What the editors and contributors have in common is that, in different contexts and in different ways, they have all benefited from the extraordinary extent and depth of Modarressi’s knowledge and understanding of Islamic law and tradition in Introduction xix all its manifestations. They have also been at the receiving end of his generosity in offering insights and sources to which access would otherwise have been difficult or impossible. Having received so much, we see this volume as an opportunity to give a little back.

Michael Cook Najam Haider Roy Mottahedeh Intisar Rabb A s m a S a y e e d