Islamic Studies

This book underlines the mutability of Islamic law and attempts to relate its substantive and institutional varieties and transformations to social, political, economic and other historical circumstances. The studies in the book range from discussion of the received wisdom in Islamic law to studies of legal institutions and the theoretical means employed by Islamic law for the accommodation of changing historical circumstances. First published in 1988.

In recent decades, traditional methods of philology and intellectual history, applied to the study of Islam and Muslim societies, have been met with considerable criticism from rising generations of scholars who have turned to the social sciences, most notably anthropology and social history, for guidance. This change has been accompanied by the rise of new fields, studying, for example, Islam in Europe and Africa, and new topics, such as the role of gender. This collection surveys these transformations and others, taking stock of the field and showing new paths forward.

In this volume the contributors use Geographical Information Systems to reassess both historic and contemporary Asian countries and traditionally Islamic areas.

This collection of essays covers the classical heritage and Islamic culture, classical Arabic science and philosophy, and Muslim religious sciences, showing continuation of Greek and Persian thought as well as original Muslim contributions to the sciences, philosophy, religion, and culture of Islam.