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Shar¿¿a Scripts is a work of historical anthropology focused on Yemen in the early twentieth century. Brinkley Messick uses the writings of the Yemeni past to offer a comprehensive view of the shar¿¿a as a localized and lived phenomenon in a groundbreaking examination of the interpretative range and insights offered by the anthropologist as reader.
List of contents
Map of Western Yemen
Introduction
Part I. Library
1. Books
2. Pre-text: Five Sciences
3. Commentaries: “Write It Down”
4. Opinions
5. “Practice with Writing”
Part II. Archive
6. Intermission
7. Judgments
8. Minutes
9. Moral Stipulations
10. Contracts
Postscript
Notes
Manuscripts and Archival Materials
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Brinkley Messick is professor of anthropology and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies as well as the director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. He is the author of The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (1993) and a coeditor of Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and Their Fatwas (1996).
Summary
Shari?a Scripts is a work of historical anthropology focused on Yemen in the early twentieth century. Brinkley Messick uses the writings of the Yemeni past to offer a comprehensive view of the shari?a as a localized and lived phenomenon in a groundbreaking examination of the interpretative range and insights offered by the anthropologist as reader.
Additional text
Sharīʿa Scripts is a work of tremendous erudition and imagination that provides a veritable roadmap for a new anthropology of Islamic law. It is bound to become required reading for scholars, students and the general public interested in understanding the inner workings of legal praxis in an authentic Muslim society.
