The Historiography of Sunni Usul al-Fiqh

2016 ◽  
pp. 248-270
Author(s):  
Youcef Soufi
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Gradual Shift ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Methodology ◽  
The Relationship

This article reviews scholarship on the history of Sunni usul al-fiqh—also known as “Islamic jurisprudence,” “legal theory,” “source law,” “legal methodology,” and “proofs of the law” (usul al-fiqh adillatuhu)—during the premodern period. It first considers the emergence of usul al-fiqh from the second AH/eighth CE to the middle of the fourth/tenth centuries, paying attention to debates about when and how jurists began to produce texts dedicated to the exposition of the genre. It highlights scholarly accounts of the gradual shift from early rudimentary discussions on legal methodology to systematic and detailed elaborations in the so-called mature texts of usul al-fiqh. It also explores the relationship between usul al-fiqh and furu‘ before turning to scholarship on usul al-fiqh sources from the late fourth/tenth up until the tenth/sixteenth century. The article concludes by assessing the relevance of the key intellectual debates over usul al-fiqh to legal practice.

Ibn Khaldūn Between Legal Theory and Legal Practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-61
Author(s):  
Mourad Laabdi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Ibn Khaldun ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
And Performance

Abstract Modern studies of Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406) have covered several aspects of his thought including historiography, pedagogy, philosophy, economy, urbanism and, most recently, mysticism. However, there remains conspicuously little on the place of the law within his intellectual enterprise despite the fact that the law had played a central role in his career as scholar, teacher, and statesman. This paper reconstructs two expressions of his relationship with the law: his conceptualization of it as a scholar, and his practice of it as a justice administrator. It first examines Ibn Khaldūn’s legal training, writings and performance, with close attention to his role as a Mālikī chief judge in Mamlūk Egypt. Then, it probes his perspective on the development of Islamic law and its institutions through a systematic analysis of his account of fiqh and uṣūl al-fiqh in the Muqaddima. The paper concludes that Ibn Khaldūn’s narrative fulfills two main tendencies: to contribute a critical analysis of the history of Islamic law, and to represent this history in a novel fashion through his theory of society and culture (ʿilm al-ʿumrān).

scholarly journals The Principle of Directive-Compliant Development of the Law and the Contra Legem Limit

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-488
Author(s):  
Thomas M.J. Möllers
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Broad Term ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Classical Methodology ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Methodology ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Domestic Law

AbstractThe Europeanisation of domestic law calls for a classical methodology to ‘update’ the established traditions of the law. The relationship between European directives and national law is difficult, since directives do apply, but European legal texts need to be implemented into national law. Whilst directives are not binding on private individuals, there is no direct third-party effect, but only an ‘indirect effect’. This effect is influenced by the stipulations of the ECJ, but is ultimately determined in accordance with methodical principles of national law. The ECJ uses a broad term of interpretation of the law. In contrast, in German and Austrian legal methodology the wording of a provision defines the dividing line between interpretation and further development of the law. The article reveals how legal scholars and the case-law have gradually shown in recent decades a greater willingness to shift from a narrow, traditional boundary of permissible development of the law to a modern line of case-law regarding the boundary of directive-compliant, permissible development of the law.

scholarly journals Mnemonic Populism: The Polish Holocaust Law and its Afterlife

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kornelia Kończal
Keyword(s):  
Significant Other ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

In early 2018, the Polish parliament adopted controversial legislation criminalising assertions regarding the complicity of the ‘Polish Nation’ and the ‘Polish State’ in the Holocaust. The so-called Polish Holocaust Law provoked not only a heated debate in Poland, but also serious international tensions. As a result, it was amended only five months after its adoption. The reason why it is worth taking a closer look at the socio-cultural foundations and political functions of the short-lived legislation is twofold. Empirically, the short history of the Law reveals a great deal about the long-term role of Jews in the Polish collective memory as an unmatched Significant Other. Conceptually, the short life of the Law, along with its afterlife, helps capture poll-driven, manifestly moralistic and anti-pluralist imaginings of the past, which I refer to as ‘mnemonic populism’. By exploring the relationship between popular and political images of the past in contemporary Poland, this article argues for joining memory and populism studies in order to better understand what can happen to history in illiberal surroundings.

Lipsius and the Art of Letter-Writing

1956 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 145-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Catherine Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Ben Jonson ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
Prose Style ◽  
History Of ◽  
Prose Rhythm ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Precise Role

“The whole history of the ‘epistle,’ as a literary genre, is full of interest and invites investigation.” — W. Rhys Roberts.One of Professor Morris Croll's earliest essays on prose style was an article on Justus Lipsius, the sixteenth-century Belgian scholar and rhetorician whose name has become identified with the “anti-Ciceronian” school of prose. Croll later studied him as the leader of a triumvirate (Lipsius, Montaigne, and Bacon), and thus clarified somewhat the relationship of English prose style to continental experiments. The indebtedness of certain English writers, like John Hoskyns and Ben Jonson, to the epistolary theory of Lipsius is now well known, but the precise role played by his Epistolica institutio in literary history has never been clearly presented. Because Professor Croll's interests were centered in prose rhythm, he analyzed the Institutio only for the light it shed upon the development of “Attic” prose structure in the Renaissance.

Lexical and Conceptual Arguments and Historical Reading: on the History of SELF

Paragraph ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-142
Author(s):  
James Helgeson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Michel De Montaigne ◽  
Conceptual Schemes ◽  
French And English ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cognitive Study ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The terms ‘self’ and ‘moi’ appeared within the lexica of French and English at the end of the sixteenth century, for example in Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. This paper takes a sceptical approach to lexical arguments about the history of the self and SELF-concepts. Initially, the relationship of SELF to the question of ‘paradigms’ and ‘conceptual schemes’ is discussed via recent work in developmental psychology (Susan Carey) and classic discussions within analytic philosophy (Donald Davidson). The questions raised in the theoretical discussion are then re-examined through short readings of texts that do not contain lexicalized SELF-vocabulary, by the sixteenth-century French writers Maurice Scève and Michel de Montaigne. It is suggested that the importance of lexical arguments to the history of selves and SELF-concepts has been exaggerated, and that cognitive study has the potential to transform the study of the first-person stance and its history.

scholarly journals Conscience and the King's Household Clergy in the Early Tudor Court of Requests

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 210-226
Author(s):  
Laura Flannigan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Central Administration ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Royal Household

The early Tudor Court of Requests was closely attached to the king's person and his duty to provide ‘indifferent’ justice. In practice, however, it was staffed by members of the attendant royal household and council. Utilizing the little-studied but extensive records of the court, this article traces the rising dominance of the dean of the Chapel Royal and the royal almoner as administrators and judges there from the 1490s to the 1520s. It examines the relationship between supposedly ‘secular’ and ‘spiritual’ activities within the central administration and between the formal and informal structures and ideologies of the church, the law and the royal household. It explores the politics of proximity and the ad hoc nature of early Tudor governance which made the conscience-based jurisdiction in Requests especially convenient to the king and desperate litigants alike. Overall the article argues that although the influence of clergymen in the court waned towards the end of the sixteenth century in favour of common-law judges, its enduring association with ‘poor men's causes’ and ‘conscience’ grew directly from these early clerical underpinnings.

The Jurisprudence of Humanism

Traditio ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 493-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myron P. Gilmore
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
Major Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

During the last decade the works of Professor Guido Kisch have made an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of the legal thought of the sixteenth century, particularly to the school represented by the University of Basel. His articles and monographs have dealt with the biographical and literary history of significant scholars as well as with the rival schools of interpretation represented by ‘mos italicus' and ‘mos gallicus.' Building on these earlier studies, Professor Kisch has now produced a major work of more comprehensive scope, which goes beyond biographical and methodological questions to the analysis of significant change in substantive legal doctrines. Convinced that the age of humanism and the reception of Roman law saw the formation of some of the most important modern legal concepts, he centers his research on the evolution of the theory of equity with due attention, on the one hand, to the relationship between sixteenth-century innovation and the historic western tradition and, on the other, to the interaction between the academic profession and the practicing lawyers.

scholarly journals History in High Places: Tatarna Monastery and the Pindus Mountains

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Molly Greene
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Central State ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
History Of ◽  
Promising Source ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Made In

Abstract Monasteries and the records they produced are a promising source base for writing a history of the mountains of the western Balkans. These mountains are, by and large, absent from accounts of the Ottoman presence in the Balkans and, as with mountainous areas more generally, are often considered to exist outside of the main historical narrative. Using the example of a monastery that was founded in the Pindus mountains in 1556, I argue that the monastery’s beginnings are best understood within the context of the Ottoman sixteenth century, even as due regard for Byzantine precedent must also be made. In addition, I pay close attention to the monastery’s location, for two reasons. First, this opens up a new set of questions for the history of monasteries during the Ottoman period; to date most studies have focused on taxation, land ownership and the relationship to the central state. Second, the monastery’s location offers a way into the environmental history of these mountains at the Empire’s western edge. This article aspires to extend the nascent field of Ottoman environmental history into mountainous terrain.

scholarly journals Das Gesetz gegen Doping im Sport in der Praxis – Eine Evaluierung

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Hoven ◽  
Michael Kubiciel
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

The act against doping in sport stands at the end of an intensive legal discussion. The main points of contention were the introduction of a punishable ban on self-doping and the relationship between national criminal law and the law governing sports associations. Five years after the act came into force, the authors undertook an evaluation of its provisions and its practical application on behalf of the German Federal Government. The book uses case studies and interviews to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the act against doping in sport. In this way, the book serves both to understand national legal practice and to provide guidance for legislators and sports associations.

Women and Gender in Canon Law

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara McDougall
Keyword(s):  
Canon Law ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Women And Gender ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Marriage Formation ◽  
The Law ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Church

Canon law, the law of the church, defined men and women as distinct and different. Nevertheless, particularly in marriage, canon law also endorsed several important equalities for spouses, irrespective of gender. This article seeks out the balance between gender equalities and inequalities in marriage as found in legal theory and in legal practice, in canon law and in canon law courts. The law itself called for a contradictory positioning of men and women as husbands and wives in a relationship that required both a hierarchical structure and at the same time equality. Ecclesiastical judges practiced a complex implementation of these rules. The article will examine the place of gender in canon law and legal practice concerning marriage in three stages: marriage formation, married life, and dissolution.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document