Law and Legal Theory in Classical and Medieval Islam

Wael B. Hallaq is Professor of Islamic Law in the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Canada

Contents: Preface; The logic of legal reasoning in religious and non-religious cultures: the case of Islamic law and the common law; Non-analogical arguments in Sunni juridical qiyas; Logic, formal arguments and formalization of arguments in Sunni jurisprudence; On inductive corroboration, probability and certainty in Sunni legal thought; Was the Gate of Ijtihad closed?; On the origins of the controversy about the existence of Mujtahids and the Gate of Ijtihad; Was al-Shafi’i the master architect of Islamic jurisprudence?; On the authoritativeness of Sunni consensus; The use and abuse of evidence: the question of provincial and Roman influences on early Islamic law; Notes on the term Qarîna in Islamic legal discourse; The primacy of the Qur’an in Shatibi’s legal theory; Usul al-Fiqh: beyond tradition; Index of Arabic terms; General index.