The Islamic School of Law.

• Author: Melchert, Christopher

The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress. Edited by PERI BEARMAN, RUDOLPH PETERS, and FRANK E. VOGEL. Harvard Series in Islamic Law 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Is LAMIC LEGAL STUDIES PROGRAM, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, 2005. Pp. xvii + 300.

This is a collection of papers presented (with one exception) to the Third International Conference on Islamic Legal Studies at the Harvard Law School, May 2000. Bernard Weiss, "The madhhabMadhhab in Islamic Legal Theory," is a brief survey of theory, drawing directly on only a few sources from the Later Middle Ages and breaking no new ground; still, one might well direct a student to it for an introduction to the topic.

Steven C. Judd, "Al -Awza'i and Sufyan al-Thawri: The Umayyad Madhhab?" questions whether Joseph Schacht was right to speak of the eighth century as dominated by regional schools of law. Awza'i and Thawri are cited together by their common disciple al-Fazarl (d. 188/803-4); they had numbers of disciples in common, and they seem to have shared juridical preferences, particularly reliance on the examples of early caliphs (hence "Umayyad"). All of this suggests to Judd a trans-regional school. The problem needs a wider evidentiary basis in the opinions of Awza'i and Thawri (where, to begin with, is Hans-Peter Raddatz. "Fruhislamisches Erbrecht nach dem Kitab al-Fara'id des Sufyan at-Tawrl;' Die Welt des Islams 13 [1971]: 26-78?), as well as the eighth-century context, but it is a notable, commendably temperate contribution to the discussion renewed by Wael Hallaq and Nimrod Hurvitz.

Eyyup Said Kaya, "Continuity and Change in Islamic Law: The Concept of Madhhab and the Dimensions of Legal Disagreement in Hanafi Scholarship of the Tenth Century," sketches the early history of the Hanafi school. Kaya identifies the leading figures on the basis of both biobibliographic works and collections of rules, the latter both to indicate how important someone was by how often he is cited and to furnish characteristic examples of regional disagreements. Kaya regrettably ignores all previous scholarship published in Europe and North America and avoids spending time on puzzles (e.g., figures who seem prominent in the biographical tradition but invisible in collections of rules). Nevertheless, it seems as solid a survey of a school and its opinions in a particular time and place (the tenth century, Khurasan and Transoxania) as I know.

Alfonso Carmona, "The Introduction of Malik's Teachings in...