Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T10:39:18.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Between Sharīʿa and Human Law: Ibn Rushd and the Unwritten Law of Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2019

Karen Taliaferro
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Get access

Summary

Chapter Four builds an Islamic theory of natural law from Ibn Rushd’s (Averroes’) Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Talkhi? Kitab al-Kha?aba li Aris?u). This chapter provides original exegesis on Ibn Rushd’s text, particularly those passages concerning what Ibn Rushd describes as an unwritten law of nature (sunan ghayr maktuba fi ?abi?at al-jami?). It expounds upon what I argue is a theory of natural law in the commentary that is largely consonant with Aristotelian natural justice as well as thoroughly Islamic in such a way that it can, and even ought to, inform contemporary understandings of shari?a. This chapter contains the most in-depth discussion of the relationship between revealed religion and natural law, as well as the most detailed proposal for a natural law epistemology.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Possibility of Religious Freedom
Early Natural Law and the Abrahamic Faiths
, pp. 83 - 103
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×