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Chapter 4 - Selections from al-Manthūr fī l-Qawāʿid of Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392)

from Part I - Islamic Legal Theory (Uṣūl al-Fiqh) and Related Genres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

Omar Anchassi
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Robert Gleave
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Summary

This chapter discusses extracts from the multifaceted legal handbook of the Cairene polymath Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Bahādur al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392), al-Manthūr fī-l-Qawāʿid. It is a versatile work exploring a number of technically involved legal topics that demonstrates the scholarly virtuosity of its author. Throughout this work al-Zarkashī presents a fascinating conceptualisation of Islamic law. Unlike jurists from earlier eras, he is relatively unconcerned with the fields of legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) and substantive legal doctrine (furūʿ al-fiqh). He focuses, instead, on the organisation of legal information, a variety of legal question games (including but not limited to riddles), and legal history. His discussion is reflective of trends in the scholarship of Islamic law in 14th century Mamluk Cairo, where a variety of different legal genres were prioritised and riddles and difficult questions were valued as part of the social performance of Islamic legal knowledge.

Type
Chapter
Information
Islamic Law in Context
A Primary Source Reader
, pp. 47 - 57
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Primary Sources

al-Zarkashī, ʿAbd Allāh b. Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad. al-Manthūr fī l-Qawāʿid, ed. Maḥmūd, Taysīr Fāʾiq Aḥmad, 3 vols. (Kuwait: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-l-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyya, 1985).Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Keegan, Matthew L.Levity Makes the Law: Islamic Legal Riddles’, Islamic Law and Society 27 (2019), 214–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kızılkaya, Necmettin. Legal Maxims in Islamic Law: Concept, History, and Applications of Axioms of Juristic Accumulation (Boston: Brill, 2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musa, Khadiga. ‘Legal Maxims as a Genre of Islamic Law: Origins, Development, and Significance of al-Qawāʿid al-Fiqhiyya’, Islamic Law and Society 21 (2014), 325–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabb, Intisar. Doubt in Islamic Law: A History of Legal Maxims, Interpretation, and Islamic Criminal Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).Google Scholar
Saba, Elias G. Harmonizing Similarities: A History of Distinctions Literature in Islamic Law (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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