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Chapter 9 - Section on Lawful Food from al-Mabsūṭ fī Fiqh al-Imāmiyya of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067)

from Part II - Islamic Jurisprudence (Fiqh) and Related Genres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Sümeyra Yakar
Edited by
Omar Anchassi  and
Robert Gleave
Omar Anchassi
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Robert Gleave
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Summary

This chapter explores the purity and licitness of a range of foodstuffs as discussed in the al-Mabsūṭ of the seminal Twelver jurist and theologian Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067). The chapter contextualises these discussions in terms of the author’s views on legal theory. The criteria for distinguishing clean from unclean foodstuffs, the discussion of their ritual purity and the frequent reference to considerations of custom (ʿurf), evidence an underlying concern with the need to adapt legal rulings to changing circumstances. Al-Mabsūṭ is partly an attempt to respond to Sunnī arguments that Twelver legal reasoning was unsystematic and innocent of the subtleties of legal theory. Throughout the Mabsūṭ, al-Ṭūsī does not name his sources but prefers to refer to the ‘majority’ of scholars, the ‘minority,’ ‘some’ jurists and various anonymous ‘opponents.’ This comparative aspect is an important feature of the work.

Keywords

Widely transmitted (mutawātir) ḥadīthsSingle-narrator reports (khabar al-āḥād)Precautionary dissimulation (taqiyya)Narrator criticism (ʿilm al-rijāl)Reason (ʿaql)Divine benevolence (luṭf)Impurity (najāsa)Customary practice (ʿurf).
Type
Chapter
Information
Islamic Law in Context
A Primary Source Reader
 , pp. 95 - 105
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Primary Sources

al-Ṭūsī, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan. al-Mabsūṭ fī Fiqh al-Imāmiyya (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Islāmī, 1992).Google Scholar
al-Ṭūsī, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan. al-ʿUdda fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh (Qum: Setāra, 1997).Google Scholar

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