Text and Interpretation: Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law.

• Author: Ahmad, Ahmad Atif

Text and Interpretation: Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law. By HOSSEIN MODAR-RESSI. Cambridge, MA: PROGRAM IN ISLAMIC LAW, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, 2022. Pp. v + 451. $60, [pounds sterling]48.95, [euro]54.

A biography, told partly directly and partly via caselaw, is what Text and Interpretation amounts to. Let's take one case, stated first as if it were a modern case of "violation of the terms of a rental agreement." I rent a car for a short trip of a few miles for, say, fifteen euros. Instead of making the short trip, I take the car to another city to collect a debt I am owed. Having changed direction in pursuit of my debtor, I return the car fifteen days later, unharmed and with the gasoline tank full, and pay my fifteen euros. To this Abu Hanifa would say, "The case has resolved itself." How did the case resolve itself for Abu Hanifa? He would say that the moment I betrayed the terms of my rental contract, I was as good as a thief, who now owed the full price of the car, say, 50,000 euros. I also owed the rental cost of fifteen euros. But after I returned the car and paid the rental, I paid what was due. Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq would think that this lousy jurisprudence may be responsible for the earth and heavens withholding their blessing. His ruling: Pay the rental for all three trips, covering the use of the car from the city of departure until the car is returned. What if I told Ja'far that I filled the car's gasoline tank and kept it clean all the way? He would say that no compensation is given to robbers, and since I was one, that applied to me. If I were to argue that the car could have had a breakdown, and who would then cover that, he would say that I owed its price before the breakdown.

In the actual story in Hossein Modarressi's book, it is a mule, not a car (and mutatis mutandis, the gasoline is animal fodder, the euros dirhams), and the story ends happily with the renter going back, on Ja'far's advice, to the mule's owner and offering the payment Ja'far assigned to him; the owner forgives the payment, taking the knowledge of Ja'far al-Sadiq he gained as a more valuable compensation (pp. 372-75). One more case--this an agricultural tort case (pp. 365-67) in which Ja'far once again functions as a court of appeals--also first reenacted as a case experienced by contemporaries: I neglect to document a repayment of a debt of mine; creditor adds his own neglect and makes no note of the collected debt, then dies; creditor's heirs claim the debt; after some payment evasion I lose a garden I owned, which is auctioned off to a pious man, who now wants to do right by me. The heirs ultimately agree to compensate the (pious) buyer, and ask him to deliver the garden back to me. Ja'far's ruling (addressing buyer): Return garden to owner, compensate him for all the harvest you collected, except what you put into the garden. All investments in the garden not collected by those who put them into it must be offset.

The title of the book under review, Text and Interpretation, conforms to an understanding shared by (Anglophone) Islamic Studies scholars as to what "Islamic law" is made of. There is the Quran and the Sunna, together one text--the word of God and the life of God's last messenger, words and acts, are the text. In addition to the text there are the human attempts at "understanding" the text. One way to do it is to build on...