Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence.

• Author: Brown, Jonathan A.C.
• Position: Book review

Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence. By MUHAMMAD BAQIR AS-SADR. Translated by Roy Parviz Mottahedeh. Oxford: ONEWORLD, 2003. Pp. x + 208. $26.95 (paper).

Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (1935-1980) was one of the most influential Shi'ite scholarly figures of the twentieth century. An Iraqi cleric who taught in Najaf, he fused a novel, thematic approach to the Shi'ite scholarly heritage with a keen sense for modern Western thought and the challenges it presented. Works such as Iqtisaduna (Our Economics) and Falsafatuna (Our Philosophy) were written as accessible and convincing manifestos of Islam for Muslims tempted by the appeals of Communism in Iraq. They became modern classics of Islamic thought. AJ-Sadr was also a committed advocate of madrasa and curriculum reform in the Shicite centers of learning in Najaf and Karbala. He joined with the Islamist Dacwa party, which had grown in strength since 1958, against Saddam Hussein. His involvement, as well as that of his equally talented sister, eventually cost them both their lives. In 1980 they were arrested, tortured, and executed by Saddam's government.

In this book, Roy Mottahedeh has provided us with a translation of the first volume of al-Sadr's three-volume introduction to Imami Shicite legal theory, Durus fl'ilm al-usul (originally published 1978). Mottahedeh provides an introduction, which includes a brief but very insightful overview of the development of Islamic law, a short comparison with the Western legal tradition, and finally a section on al-Sadr's life and works. Then begins the body of the translated text itself, which is divided into four chapters.

Chapter one is al-Sadr's characterization of the nature and function of legal theory and its relation to jurisprudence. It centers on the primary questions driving the process of Muslim legal thought. How do we know what God wants (since, al-Sadr argues, the necessity of knowing His will is manifest for humans from both a rational and scriptural basis)? How does one understand the sea of proof texts from God and His infallible representatives (the Prophet and the imams)? How do Muslims derive a body of law from the Qur'an and Sunna, which, taken in their entirety, furnish "a scattered heap of texts and arguments" (p. 41)? Chapter one features a particularly lucid discussion (pp. 47-53) of the history of the technical term ijtihad in Shi'ite thought and the ideas and practices associated with it. Here, al-Sadr explains clearly how historically...