Doubt in Islamic Law - A History of Legal Maxims, Interpretation, and Islamic Criminal Law

This book considers the rarely studied but pervasive concepts of doubt that medieval Muslim jurists used to resolve problematic criminal cases.

List of contents

Introduction; Part I. Institutional Structures and Doubt, Seventh-Sixteenth Century CE: 1. The God of severity and lenity; 2. The rise of doubt; Part II. Morality and Social Context, Eighth-Eleventh Century CE: 3. Hierarchy and hudud laws, eighth-ninth century CE; 4. Doubt as moral discomfort, tenth-eleventh century CE; Part III. The Jurisprudence of Doubt, Eighth-Sixteenth Century CE: 5. Doubt as an element of Islamic criminal law, eighth-eleventh century CE; 6. Substantive, procedural, and interpretive doubt, eleventh-sixteenth century CE; 7. Strict textualism as a limitation on doubt: Sunni opponents, eighth-eleventh century CE; 8. Dueling theories of delegation and interpretation: Shi'i doubt, tenth-sixteenth century CE; Conclusion: doubt in comparative and contemporary context.

About the author

Intisar A. Rabb is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the director of its Islamic Legal Studies Program. She also holds an appointment as a Professor of History and as Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Massachusetts.

Summary

Through a close examination of legal, historical, and theological sources, this book considers a largely neglected area of Islamic law, calling into question a controversial popular notion about Islamic law today, which is that Islamic law is a divine legal tradition that has little room for discretion or doubt, particularly in Islamic criminal law.

Product details

• Authors: Intisar A. Rabb, Intisar A. (Harvard Law School Rabb, Rabb Intisar A.
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.10.2017
• EAN: 9781107440517
• ISBN: 978-1-107-44051-7
• No. of pages: 430
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization; Cambridge Studies in Islamic C; Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Law > Miscellaneous; Islam, HISTORY / Middle East / General, Legal History, Middle Eastern history, Systems of law: Islamic law, Criminal law: procedure and offences