A History of Islamic Law

Lawyers,  according to Edmund Burke, are bad historians. He was referring to an  unwillingness, rather than an inaptitude, on the part of early  nineteenth-century English lawyers to concern themselves with the past:  for contemporary jurisprudence was a pure and isolated science wherein  law appeared as a body of rules, based upon objective criteria, whose  nature and very existence were independent of considerations of time and  place. Despite the influence of the historical school of Western  jurisprudence, Burke's observation is generally valid for Middle East  studies. Muslim jurisprudence in its traditional form provides an  extreme example of a legal science divorced from historical  considerations. Law, in classical Islamic theory, is the revealed will  of God, a divinely ordained system preceding, and not preceded by, the  Muslim state controlling, but not controlled by, Muslim society. There  can thus be no relativistic notion of the law itself evolving as an  historical phenomenon closely tied with the progress of society. The  increasing number of nations that are largely Muslim or have a Muslim  head of state, emphasizes the growing political importance of the  Islamic world, and, as a result, the desirability of extending and  expanding the understanding and appreciation of their culture and belief  systems. Since history counts for much among Muslims and what happened  in 632 or 656 is still a live issue, a journalistic familiarity with  present conditions is not enough; there must also be some awareness of  how the past has molded the present. This book is designed to give the  reader a clear picture. But where there are gaps, obscurities, and  differences of opinion, these are also indicated.