Read more
In a richly narrated historical study, Soufi excavates an Islamic legal culture of critique from the 10th to 13th centuries. Focusing on the practice of munazara (disputation), Soufi explores how and why oral debates became a pervasive and revered part of the intellectual legal landscape of Iraq and Persia.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Part I
- Chapter 1: Mourning Loss Through Debate: Pious Critique and its Limits
- Chapter 2: The Emergence of Pious Critique: a Genealogy of "Munazara"
- Chapter 3 "Why do We Debate?": Uncovering Two Discursive Foundations for Disputation
- Part II
- Chapter 4: Debating the Convert's Jizya: How the Madhhab Enabled Ijtihad
- Chapter 5: Forced Marriage in Shafi'i Law: Revisiting School Doctrine
- Chapter 6: The Case of the Mistaken Prayer Direction: Debating Indeterminate School Doctrine
- Part III
- Chapter 7: The End of Critical Islam?: Shafi'ism and Temporal Decay
About the author
Youcef Soufi is Research Associate at the University of Toronto's Institute of Islamic Studies. He is a former Assistant Professor in Islamic Studies at the University of British Columbia and a former Chair of the Canadian Association for the Study of Islam and Muslims (CASIM). He has held fellowships at the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto, the Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies at Simon Frasier University, and The Centre for Studies in Religion and Society (CSRS) at The University of Victoria.
Summary
In a richly narrated historical study, Soufi excavates an Islamic legal culture of critique from the 10th to 13th centuries. Focusing on the practice of munazara (disputation), Soufi explores how and why oral debates became a pervasive and revered part of the intellectual legal landscape of Iraq and Persia.
Additional text
The Rise of Critical Islam is an essential addition to studying Islamic intellectual history and holds important lessons for Muslims today. At a point often described by many as the peak of Islamic intellectual prowess, Muslims embraced alternative opinions and engaged in a culture of debate not necessarily aimed at reaching a definitive conclusion.
