Was Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarabādī (d. 1036/1626-7) a Mujtahid?

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 38-61
Author(s):  
Rula Jurdi Abisaab
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Rational Theology ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Law ◽  
Sociopolitical Forces

Abstract The prevalent view that Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarabādī (d. 1036/1626-7) studied with a prominent uṣūlī (rationalist) jurist, namely, Shaykh Ḥasan Ṣāḥib al-Maʿālim (d. 1011/1602), the son of al-Shahīd al-Thānī (d. 965/1558), and that he was a mujtahid for most of his life before he converted to akhbārism (traditionism) in Mecca, is largely unfounded. This view surfaced during the late nineteenth century, through Muḥammad Bāqir al-Khwānsārī’s Rawḍāt al-Jannāt, and was uncritically integrated into the major bio-bibliographical accounts on al-Astarabādī’s life and scholarship afterwards. Many modern scholars in turn adopted this view, producing inadequate conclusions about the nature of his akhbārī movement. Based on a close assessment of al-Astarabādī’s extant works and his references to his teachers and places where he studied, Shiraz rather than Mecca was decisive in shaping his early traditionist stance in Shīʿa kalām (rational theology), which resonated with his traditionist positions in jurisprudence and ḥadīth. As far as one can tell through his ijāzās (scholarly licenses), he sought to transmit ḥadīth from one mujtahid, namely, Shaykh Muḥammad Ṣāḥib al-Madārik (d. 1009/1600), but did not receive training in ijtihād (rational legal inference) with him. He appears to have been well-versed in the methods used by ūṣūlī jurists to evaluate ḥadīth and derive the law, prior to that time, through his studies in Shiraz. All these findings, lead us to question the background and nature of his akhbārī thought as they were presented in much of the secondary literature, and to bring attention to a distinct set of intellectual and sociopolitical forces that shaped it.

Lost Voices: Chinese Muslim Modernists and the Issue of Polygamy in the Republican Era

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-117
Author(s):  
Bin Chen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Polygamous Marriage ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Republican Era ◽  
Vital Component ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Law

AbstractThis study brings the voices of Chinese Muslim modernists back into discussions on polygamy in the Republican era. Starting from the late nineteenth century, abolishing the practice of polygamous marriage became a vital component of Chinese modernizing elites’ vision of modern Chinese society, as they saw polygamy as an obstacle to modernization. Chinese Muslim modernists actively engaged in China's struggle with polygamy. Their dynamic discussions on polygamy were not insignificant and peripheral. On the contrary, when the Republican law promoting monogamy was hard to implement, some Chinese Muslim modernists pushed their fellow Muslims to set examples for other Chinese to obey the law. The Chinese translations of Arabic scholarly work even helped some Chinese Muslim modernists take a different approach to the issue of polygamy by arguing that polygamy, if properly regulated, could be beneficial to modern societies.

Hermann Cohen and the Jewish Neo-Kantians

2011 ◽  
pp. 213-224
Author(s):  
David Novak
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
German Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Law ◽  
Hermann Cohen ◽  
Secular State

This chapter reviews Hermann Cohen's presentation of the Noahide laws. Cohen desired to show that Jews in late nineteenth-century European (and especially German) society could be and were in fact good citizens, and that their Judaism was an aid to citizenship. Judaism was not an insular religion, and Jews supported the secular state, Cohen affirmed. For instance, he maintained that the aim of the law of adjudication was “objective lawfulness,” a signal starting-point for any society, secular or religious. Cohen's view of moral law was shaped by Kantian ethics. He argues that Noahide law confirms the humanity of gentiles, and that this rabbinic construction was the first of its kind. Recognizing the humanity of others is the beginning of autonomous ethics. For Cohen, the human ethical future is best presented through Jewish universalism, leading to universal ethical monotheism in the messianic age. This last point has been central to liberal Jewish theology since Cohen's time.

Torts

2019 ◽  
pp. 443-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Growth Spurt ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Law ◽  
Private Wrongs

This chapter discusses the development of tort law in the second half of the nineteenth century. Tort law experienced its biggest growth spurt in the late nineteenth century. The legal world began to sit up and pay attention. The very first English-language treatise on torts appeared in 1859: Francis Hilliard’s book, The Law of Torts, Or Private Wrongs. Then came Charles G. Addison, Wrongs and Their Remedies in 1860, in England. By 1900, there was an immense literature on the law of torts; Joel Bishop and Thomas M. Cooley had written imposing treatises on the subject; the case law had swollen to heroic proportions. Tort law was a product of the industrial revolution; England here had a head start; problems emerged there first, and so did their tentative legal solutions.

The Evolution of Virginity

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora E. Jaffary
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Empirical Means

This chapter traces change and continuity in the discourse and practice of virginity through colonial and nineteenth-century Mexico by studying religious tracts, medical texts, and criminal trials. Particular attention is paid to the testimony that Mexican midwives supplied about virginity to criminal courts. Colonial Mexicans primarily associated virginity with Catholic symbolism and expressed uncertainty about the confirmation of biological virginity. In this era, the cessation of menstruation might indicate pregnancy, but might also indicate various other medical conditions which could be alleviated through the ingestion of socially sanctioned menstrual regulators. The late nineteenth century marked the emergence of a scientific discourse that posited an impartial and empirical means to establish “biological virginity,” particularly in the research of physician Francisco Flores’ study of the Mexican hymen. Evidence from criminal trials and secondary literature also reveals a change across time whereby by the late nineteenth century, increasing numbers of lower class Mexican women purportedly adopted the imperative of preserving virginity prior to marriage than had done so in the colonial era.

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