The Ja’fari School represents the principal method of jurisprudence in Shi’a Islam and the official source of Islamic law under the Iranian Constitution. It is comparatively less well known among students of Islamic law in the West, who tend to focus on the four Sunni schools of fiqh. A new book from Harvard, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law, offers an intellectual history of the school’s founder, the eighth century scholar Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. The author is Near Eastern Studies Professor Hossein Modarressi (Princeton). Here is the description from the publisher’s website:

Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law examines the main characteristics of the legal thought of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, a preeminent religious scholar jurist of Medina in the first half of the second century of the Muslim calendar (mid-eighth century CE). Numerous works in different languages have appeared over the past half century to introduce this school of Islamic law and its history, legal theory, and substance in contexts of Shīʿī law.

While previous literature has focused on the current status of the school in its developed and expanded form, this book presents an intellectual history of how the school began. The Jaʿfarī school emerged within the general legal discourse of the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, but was known to differ in certain approaches from the other main legal schools of this time. Namely, the Jaʿfarī school expanded the tools for legal interpretation generally and contracts specifically, to a degree unmatched by any of its counterparts in the Muslim legal tradition. In addition to sketching the origins of the school, the book examines Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s interpretive approach through detailing his position on a number of specific questions, as well as the legal canons, presumptions, and other interpretive tools he adopted.

In classical Islamic law, Hudud crimes are those committed against Allah and for which Allah has mandated punishments that man cannot alter. The schools differ on the precise definition, but Hudud crimes include apostasy, illicit sexual intercourse, some forms of theft, and drinking alcohol. Punishments for Hudud crimes are severe, but classical Islamic law insisted on high standards of proof that made convictions very difficult.

A new book from Oxford, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: A Fresh Interpretation, by Mohammad Hashim Kamali, one of the foremost scholars of Islamic law writing in English today, argues for what he calls a “fresh” reading of the sources on Hudud offenses. Here is the description from the publisher’s website:

In Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: A Fresh Interpretation, Mohammad Kamali considers problems associated with and proposals for reform of the hudud punishments prescribed by Islamic criminal law, and other topics related to crime and punishment in Shariah. He examines what the Qur’an and hadith say about hudud punishments, as well as just retaliation (qisas), and discretionary punishments (ta’zir), and looks at modern-day applications of Islamic criminal law in 15 Muslim countries. Particular attention is given to developments in Malaysia, a multi-religious society, federal state, and self-described democracy, where a lively debate about hudud has been on-going for the last three decades. Malaysia presents a particularly interesting case study of how a reasonably successful country with a market economy, high levels of exposure to the outside world, and a credible claim to inclusivity, deals with Islamic and Shariah-related issues.

Kamali concludes that there is a significant gap between the theory and practice of hudud in the scriptural sources of Shariah and the scholastic articulations of jurisprudence of the various schools of Islamic law, arguing that literalism has led to such rigidity as to make Islamic criminal law effectively a dead letter. His goal is to provide a fresh reading of the sources of Shariah and demonstrate how the Qur’an and Sunnah can show the way forward to needed reforms of Islamic criminal law.

Rashid Rida was an Islamic reformer, active in the early part of the 20th Century, who advocated reopening the gates of interpretation of Islamic law in order to address issues of modernity–including new scientific discoveries and technologies being imported from the West. A book out this summer from Columbia University Press, Modern Things on Trial: Islam’s Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida, 1865–1935, describes his influence in Islamic law and civilization. The author is Leor Halevi (Vanderbilt). Here’s the description from the publisher’s site:

In cities awakening to global exchange under European imperial rule, Muslims encountered all sorts of strange and wonderful new things—synthetic toothbrushes, toilet paper, telegraphs, railways, gramophones, brimmed hats, tailored pants, and lottery tickets. The passage of these goods across cultural frontiers spurred passionate debates. Realizing that these goods were changing religious practices and values, proponents and critics wondered what to outlaw and what to permit.

In this book, Leor Halevi tells the story of the Islamic trials of technological and commercial innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He focuses on the communications of an entrepreneurial Syrian interpreter of the shariʿa named Rashid Rida, who became a renowned reformer by responding to the demand for authoritative and authentic religious advice. Upon migrating to Egypt, Rida founded an Islamic magazine, The Lighthouse, which cultivated an educated, prosperous readership within and beyond the British Empire. To an audience eager to know if their scriptures sanctioned particular interactions with particular objects, he preached the message that by rediscovering Islam’s foundational spirit, the global community of Muslims would thrive and realize modernity’s religious and secular promises.

Through analysis of Rida’s international correspondence, Halevi argues that religious entanglements with new commodities and technologies were the driving forces behind local and global projects to reform the Islamic legal tradition. Shedding light on culture, commerce, and consumption in Cairo and other colonial cities, Modern Things on Trial is a groundbreaking account of Islam’s material transformation in a globalizing era.

Oxford has released a new collection of essays on Islamic law, The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law, edited by Anver Emon (University of Toronto) and Rumee Ahmed (University of British Columbia). Looks like a helpful addition to the literature. Here is the publisher’s description:

A landmark study of the most significant topics in field, The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law is the first of its kind to offer a systemically sustained critical interrogation of the study of Islamic law to date. With entries from leading scholars, this volume delivers a historiographical examination of Islamic law, familiarizing readers with some of the most important names and ideas in the field.

While capturing the state of contemporary legal studies by chronicling how far the field has come, the Handbook’s unique strength lies in how each entry explains why certain debates recur in certain areas of study, while also indicating fundamental gaps in our knowledge of this legal tradition. Moreover, each entry charts out bold new avenues for research that map out the future study of Islamic law. The Handbook will be an essential resource for scholars and students of Islam and Islamic law for years to come.

To round out the week, here is an interesting-looking book from Oxford, Halal Food: A History, on the Islamic law of halal food, and how the interpretation of that law has varied over time. The authors are Middlebury College historian Febe Armanios and University of Vermont historian Bogac Ergene. Here’s the description from the Oxford website:

Food trucks announcing “halal” proliferate in many urban areas but how many non-Muslims know what this means, other than cheap lunch? Here Middle Eastern historians Febe Armanios and Bogaç Ergene provide an accessible introduction to halal (permissible) food in the Islamic tradition, exploring what halal food means to Muslims and how its legal and cultural interpretations have changed in different geographies up to the present day.

Historically, Muslims used food to define their identities in relation to co-believers and non-Muslims. Food taboos are rooted in the Quran and prophetic customs, as well as writings from various periods and geographical settings. As in Judaism and among certain Christian sects, Islamic food traditions make distinctions between clean and impure, and dietary choices and food preparation reflect how believers think about broader issues. Traditionally, most halal interpretations focused on animal slaughter and the consumption of intoxicants. Muslims today, however, must also contend with an array of manufactured food products–yogurts, chocolates, cheeses, candies, and sodas–filled with unknown additives and fillers. To help consumers navigate the new halal marketplace, certifying agencies, government and non-government bodies, and global businesses vie to meet increased demands for food piety. At the same time, blogs, cookbooks, restaurants, and social media apps have proliferated, while animal rights and eco-conscious activists seek to recover halal’s more wholesome and ethical inclinations.

Covering practices from the Middle East and North Africa to South Asia, Europe, and North America, this timely book is for anyone curious about the history of halal food and its place in the modern world.

Law features much more prominently in the life of Islam than Christianity. This was, in some ways, a comparative advantage for the new faith. At least the leaders of Christian communities perceived it as such: in the early centuries of their encounter with Islam, Christian leaders often identified the influence the fiqh courts had in encouraging conversions within their communities. One medieval Armenian cleric, Mkhitar Gosh, even complied a Christian law code to compete with fiqh, so that Armenian Christians would have less temptation to resort to Islamic courts.

A new collection of essays from Harvard University Press, Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, addresses the history of the early Islamic courts. The editors are Intisar Rabb (Harvard Law School) and Abigail Krasner Balbale (Bard Graduate Center). Here’s the description from the Harvard website:

This book presents an in-depth exploration of the administration of justice during Islam’s founding period, 632–1250 CE. Inspired by the scholarship of Roy Parviz Mottahedeh and composed in his honor, this volume brings together ten leading scholars of Islamic law to examine the history of early Islamic courts. This approach draws attention to both how and why the courts and the people associated with them functioned in early Islamic societies: When a dispute occurred, what happened in the courts? How did judges conceive of justice and their role in it? When and how did they give attention to politics and procedure?

Each author draws on diverse sources that illuminate a broader and deeper vision of law and society than traditional legal literature alone can provide, including historical chronicles, biographical dictionaries, legal canons, exegetical works, and mirrors for princes. Altogether, the volume offers both a substantive intervention on early Islamic courts and on methods for studying legal history as social history. It illuminates the varied and dynamic legal landscapes stretching across early Islam, and maps new approaches to interdisciplinary legal history.