ISIM NEWSLETTER 3 / 9 9 ISIM 3 Institutional News NATHALM.DESSING ISIM’s New Academic Director Muhammad Khalid Masud phone, and the use of toothbrushes, estab- book Iqbal’s Reconstruction of Ijtihad (Lahore, of existing scholarly analysis of Muslim poli- lished his enduring interest in methodology 1995). His extensive international experience tics. Supporting James Piscatori, he suggests and the impact of social change on Islamic also includes a stay in Nigeria from 1980 to that many scholars resort to impressionistic law. The questions posed by such novelties 1984, where he was senior lecturer at the Cen- and general statements, for example in as- could not be solved within the framework of tre for Islamic Legal Studies at the Ahmadu suming that the nation-state constitutes an the widely accepted theory concerning the Bello University in Zaria. There he taught Ma- appropriate unit of analysis in the Muslim 'usûl al-fiqh, developed by Al-Shâficî and fur- likite law and had the opportunity to become world. He has also co-edited a volume entitled ther refined by subsequent Muslim scholars. acquainted with Malikite law in practice. He Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and Their According to them, there are four sources of was a member of the Committee on the Com- Fatwas (Harvard University Press, 1996). This is evidence in Islamic law: the Koran, tradition parative Study of Muslim Societies, Social a collection of analytical studies of specific fat- Professor Muhammad Khalid Masud has recently literature (hadîth), consensus (ijmâc), and rea- Science Research Council, New York, from was on various issues contributed by several been named Academic Director of the ISIM for three soning by analogy (qiyâs). However, if no 1985 to 1990. This appointment gave him the scholars. His interest in Islamic law and social years. He succeeds Professor Wim Stokhof who, as Di- precedent exists, reasoning by analogy is not opportunity to widen his international con- sciences also underlies his current research rector in Charge, laid the foundations of the Institute possible. Solving this category of legal prob- tacts and to further develop his interest in so- project on religion, law, and society in Islam. and led the search for an Academic Director. We will lems requires alternative principles on the cial sciences. In 1990, the Committee held a As ISIM Academic Director, Masud will build miss the distinctive presence of Wim Stokhof, but we basis of which one is able to declare some- workshop in London on the Tablîghî Jamâ'at, on his broad international experience. As a are delighted with the arrival of Muhammad Masud at thing lawful or unlawful. This methodological a twentieth-century transnational movement Pakistani at the head of a Western academic the ISIM. Masud joins the ISIM from the Islamic Re- question led Masud to the Malikite Shâtibî for the renewal of Islamic faith. This meeting institution, Masud will be able to assure that search Institute (IRI), International Islamic University, (d. 1388), whose works (especially Al-Muwâ- was organized within a wider project on Mus- both Muslim and non-Muslim scholarly ap- Islamabad, Pakistan, where he was professor and faqât, Fatâwa, and Al-Ictisâm) are frequently lim transnationalism led by James Piscatori. proaches to the Islamic world are represented head of the Islamic Law and Jurisprudence Unit. cited by modern scholars and have con- Masud edited the proceedings of this work- and accepted at the ISIM, and that the appear- tributed to the modernists’ conception of Is- shop, entitled Travellers in Faith(forthcoming). ance of double standards in dealing with Muhammad Khalid Masud was born in 1939 lamic law. Unlike his predecessors, Shâtibî Masud has also conducted research on the Islam is avoided. His plans for the ISIM involve in India. His family fled to Pakistan when the adopted the concept of maslaha as an inde- position of Muslims in non-Muslim societies the development of a methodology based on state was formed. After working as a teacher, pendent principle: a method of inductive rea- from the perspective of Islamic law. In ‘Being three pillars: social sciences, religious studies, he entered the Punjab University at Lahore soning that takes into consideration the en- Muslim in a Non-Muslim Polity’, in Journal of and history. Thus far, modern Islam has been and in 1962 obtained an MA in Islamic Studies tirety of Koranic verses andhadîth, rather than the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (1989), approached mostly from the perspective of with honours. From 1963 to 1999, he was as- specific verses and hadîth. According to he distinguishes three approaches to the one of these disciplines, whereas Masud sociated with the IRI, where he held many po- Shâtibî, something is lawful if it is supported question of the permissibility for Muslims to favours a multidisciplinary approach that sitions, including editor of the journal Islamic by textual evidence and social practice. In this live in non-Muslim countries. He argues that builds on all three. Furthermore, to avoid Studies for two spells in the 1970s and 1980s. framework of thinking, change is allowed in the approach that allows Muslims to live in stereotyping Islam, he emphasizes the impor- Masud took several periods of leave from câda but not in cibâdât. Masud’s doctoral dis- non-Muslim countries provided they are al- tance of comparative studies of Islam and the IRI in order to study and conduct research sertation on Shâtibî formed the basis of his lowed to fulfil their religious duties is the most Muslim societies. In this way, Masud hopes to abroad. From 1966 to 1973 he studied at book Shatibi’s Philosophy of Law, published by constructive. Masud has surveyed this funda- bring out the diversity of Muslim responses to McGill University in Canada, where he re- the IRI in 1973 and in a revised and enlarged mental debate and elucidated many of its contemporary problems, which is superim- ceived an MA in 1969 and a PhD in Islamic edition in 1995. subtleties. posed on the underlying unity of Islam. ♦ Studies in 1973. His MA thesis on Deobandi In 1977 Masud obtained a Fulbright post- In his contribution to Russia’s Muslim Fron- fatwas dealing with legal problems for which doctoral award, which enabled him to visit li- tiers: New Directions in Cross-Cultural Analysis, Nathal M. Dessing is a PhD researcher at Leiden there is no precedent, such as those arising braries in Philadelphia and other cities in the edited by Dale F. Eickelman (Indiana Universi- University, specializing in life cycle rituals of Muslims in from Western dress, banknotes, the gramo- United States for research that resulted in his ty Press, 1993), Masud explores the limitations the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected].