Islamic Lgl Thry Lgl Change

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course addresses the perpetual problem faced by a legal system that is based on a finite body of text (Qur’ān and ḥadīth): How to apply and adapt the limited textual material to an unlimited possibility of legal instances? Based on Arabic texts, we explore works of Islamic legal theorists of the pre-modern period (al-Ghazālī, al-Rāzī, al-Qarāfī, and al-Ṭūfī) that discuss means and methods to attain legal change without straying from the sources of the law. The course material focuses on the principle of maṣlaḥa and the way this concept is employed to find solutions for unprecedented legal situations. Throughout the semester, we investigate the effects different interpretation and integration into the law-finding procedures have on maṣlaḥa’s potential to achieve legal change.