Harvard Series in Islamic Law

Gideon Libson’s highly original work on custom is the first attempt to present a comprehensive comparative study of Jewish–Islamic law on a particular topic during the early Middle Ages. His in-depth study of Islamic law—its sources, legal schools, and extensive legal literature—together with his expertise in the wide range of geonic and rabbinic literature enable him to determine the influence of Muslim practice on geonic custom.

These selected papers from the III International Conference on Islamic Legal Studies, held in 2000 at Harvard Law School, offer building blocks toward the entire edifice of understanding the complex development of the madhhab, a development that, even in the contemporary dissolution of madhhab lines and grouping, continues to fascinate.

So closely is the early development of the Hanafi school interwoven with non-legal spheres—the political, social, and theological—that its study is essential to a proper understanding of medieval Islamic history. Tsafrir offers a thorough examination of the first century and a half of the school’s existence, the period during which it took shape.

This book is a study of the historical record of the property rights and equity of Muslim women. Based on Islamic court documents of fifteenth-century Granada--documents that show a high degree of women’s involvement--the book examines women’s legal entitlements to acquire property, as well as the social and economic significance of these rights to Granada’s female population and, by extension, to women in other Islamic societies.

Although often neglected in the literature on Islamic law, contemporary Indonesia is an especially rich source of insight into the Islamic legal tradition. The essays in this volume provide focused examinations of the internal dynamics of intellectual and institutional Islamic law in modern Indonesia, together offering a substantive introduction to important developments in both the theory and practice of law in the world’s most populous Muslim society.

Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts explores the administration of justice during Islam’s founding period, 632–1250 CE. Inspired by the scholarship of Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, ten scholars of Islamic law draw on diverse sources including historical chronicles, biographical dictionaries, exegetical works, and mirrors for princes.

The first written treatise of Islamic law, Imam Mālik’s 8th century CE Muwaṭṭaʾ provides an unparalleled window into the lives, rituals, laws, and customs of Medina’s early Muslim community. Based on the 2013 Muwaṭṭaʾ: The Royal Moroccan Edition, this translation with extensive notes makes this early legal text widely accessible.

Leaving Iberia examines Islamic legal responses to Muslims living under Christian rule in medieval and early modern Iberia and North Africa, links the juristic discourses on conquered Muslims on both sides of the Mediterranean, and adds a significant chapter to the story of Christian–Muslim relations in the medieval Mediterranean.

Text and Interpretation examines the main characteristics of the legal thought of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, preeminent religious scholar jurist of Medina in the first half of the second century of the Muslim calendar. This book presents an intellectual history of how the Jaʿfarī school began and examines the scholar’s interpretive approach.