The Ethics of Legal Theory

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course explores the relationship of Ethics in Islamic Legal Theory. It focuses on the question of how legal theorists of the 5th/11th century conceive human ability to discern good and bad (taḥsīn and taqbīḥ) and whether and if so how they apply this in their definition and modes of identifying the ratio legis (ʿilla) in legal analogy. The course readings are drawn from the legal writings of ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, al-Dabbūsī, and al-Juwaynī on “good” and “bad” and on their chapters on legal analogy, focusing on their definition and procedures to correctly determine the ratio legis. In addition to the Arabic primary sources, students read scholarly studies on the interplay between ethics and law.