The Logic of Law Making in Islam
Women and Prayer in the Legal Tradition

This pioneering study is a fascinating overview of how Islamic law has evolved and the thinking behind individual rulings.

Behnam Sadeghi (Author)

9781107529786, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 May 2015

242 pages, 11 b/w illus.
23 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

'… I believe this book to be a contribution of the highest order. It introduces an entirely novel yet exceptionally rational approach, provides models for testing, sheds light on some of the more challenging questions in Islamic legal studies, and - though I often disagree with subsequent interpretations - conveys premodern narratives and legal material with accuracy. The case studies are valuable in and of themselves with regard to current research and debates on several topics concerning the status and rights of women in premodern Islamic law; the author's 'hypothetical' ijtihâd … with regard to women's attendance at group prayers is itself compelling. Most importantly, however, Sadeghi contributes an articulate legal developmental paradigm that - though extreme in its descriptive-centrism - is a formidable addition to the array of current models in the field, and of particular import in understanding the so-called ?anafî ?arîqa of u?ûl al-fiqh. Walter E. Young, Journal of the American Oriental Society

This pioneering study examines the process of reasoning in Islamic law. Some of the key questions addressed here include whether sacred law operates differently from secular law, why laws change or stay the same and how different cultural and historical settings impact the development of legal rulings. In order to explore these questions, the author examines the decisions of thirty jurists from the largest legal tradition in Islam: the Hanafi school of law. He traces their rulings on the question of women and communal prayer across a very broad period of time - from the eighth to the eighteenth century - to demonstrate how jurists interpreted the law and reconciled their decisions with the scripture and the sayings of the Prophet. The result is a fascinating overview of how Islamic law has evolved and the thinking behind individual rulings.

1. A general model
2. Preliminaries
3. Women praying with men: adjacency
4. Women praying with women
5. Women praying with men: communal prayers
6. The historical development of Hanafi reasoning
7. From laws and values
8. The logic of law making.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Islam [HRH], Religion: general [HRA], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]