The history of Shari'a

April 27, 2018 6:19 PM

The History of the Shariʿa. An article on the evolution of Islamic law in Lapham's Quarterly by Mohammad Fadel.

From the drop: How Islam’s divine law emerged, evolved, and spread—then reached a crisis point.

posted by tavegyl (3 comments total)

i took a course in sharia during law school taught by khaled abou el fadl, another scholar in the field. he tried to impress on us how islamic law, like western common law, was an evolving thing that changed depending on the political power of the groups in charge at any given time, just as this article says. as with any rules based system, the arbiters make all difference in how the rules are interpreted and applied. (also, some extremists tried to assassinate him and a quran in his breast jacket pocket stopped the bullet, for real. so... damn.)
posted by wibari at 11:04 PM on April 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

This was a total trip down memory lane--so much so that I went back to see if this was my old professor--and covers information that I genuinely wish more Westerners learned in school. My kingdom for a required K-12 course on world religions that actually covered the rest of the world (and one on the history of China...I learned more about China in my History of Islam courses than my World History courses).

One of the most interesting things I remember from the course I took was learning about the different legal schools and the ways in which hadith and fiqh could be held (usually problematically) as more important than the Qur'an itself at various points in various areas. It's especially interesting when you trace a specific example--such as veiling--over the geographies and empires and peoples of Islam.

Any case, this is a great intro article and I'd love to see the author expand more on the 20th/21stc repercussions of the diminishment of the power of the schools.
posted by librarylis at 8:06 PM on April 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I really hope either him, or another contributor, could expand on the Sharia as practiced by Shiites. I will definitely admit my knowledge about my fellow Muslims are quite scant when it comes to their jurisprudence.
posted by cendawanita at 8:50 AM on April 29, 2018