The Second Formation of Islamic Law
The Hanafi School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

The Second Formation of Islamic Law offers a new periodization of Islamic legal history in the eastern Islamic lands.

Guy Burak (Author)

9781107090279, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 January 2015

294 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23.1 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.56 kg

'Burak displays an impressive command of Ottoman legal writings, both published and in manuscript. This is by far the most detailed examination to date of the legal literature of the period … Burak has given Ottomanists and students of early modern Islamic empires much to consider, and for that he is to be thanked. This book is an important reference for anyone studying the development of law in the Ottoman Empire.' Adam Sabra, The American Historical Review

The Second Formation of Islamic Law is the first book to deal with the rise of an official school of law in the post-Mongol period. The author explores how the Ottoman dynasty shaped the structure and doctrine of a particular branch within the Hanafi school of law. In addition, the book examines the opposition of various jurists, mostly from the empire's Arab provinces, to this development. By looking at the emergence of the concept of an official school of law, the book seeks to call into question the grand narratives of Islamic legal history that tend to see the nineteenth century as the major rupture. Instead, an argument is formed that some of the supposedly nineteenth-century developments, such as the codification of Islamic law, are rooted in much earlier centuries. In so doing, the book offers a new periodization of Islamic legal history in the eastern Islamic lands.

Introduction
1. Muft?s
2. Genealogies and boundaries I: situating the imperial learned hierarchy within the H?anaf? jurisprudential tradition
3. Genealogies and boundaries II: two responses from the Arab provinces of the empire
4. Books of high repute
5. Intra-madhhab plurality and the empire's legal landscape
Conclusion: the second formation of Islamic law.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Islamic law [LAFS], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]