The Logic of Law Making in Islam This pioneering study examines the process of reasoning in Islamic law. Some of the key questions addressed here include whether sacred law operates differently from secular law, why laws change or stay the same, how changing laws are reconciled with fixed foundational texts, and how different cultural and historical settings impact the development of legal rulings. In order to explore these questions, the author examines the decisions of thirty jurists from the largest legal tradition in Islam: the اكبرH anafı school of law. He traces their rulings on the question of women and communal prayer across a very broad period of time from the eighth century to the eighteenth century to demonstrate how jurists interpreted the law and reconciled their decisions with the scripture and the sayings of the Prophet. The result is a fascinating overview of how Islamic law has evolved and the thinking behind individual rulings. has been an assistant professor of religious studies at Stanford University since 2006. His research spans Islamic thought and law in the early and postformative periods. In addition, he has made groundbreaking contributions to the history of the Qur an and the hadıلا th literature in a series of published essays.
Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization Editorial Board David O. Morgan, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison (general editor) Shahab Ahmed, Harvard University Virginia Aksan, McMaster University Michael Cook, Princeton University Peter Jackson, Keele University Chase F. Robinson, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Published titles are listed at the back of the book.
The Logic of Law Making in Islam Women and Prayer in the Legal Tradition Stanford University
cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA Information on this title: /9781107009097 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Sadeghi, Behnam, 1969 The logic of law making in Islam: women and prayer in the legal tradition /. pages cm. (Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-00909-7 1. Islamic law Methodology. 2. Islamic law Philosophy. 3. Islamic law Interpretation and construction. I. Title. KBP144.S227 2012 297.3 82082 dc23 2012012606 ISBN 978-1-107-00909-7 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents Preface Acknowledgments Key Technical Definitions page xi xix xxi 1. A General Model 1 1.1. Revisability and Indeterminacy 1 1.2. A General Model of Decision Making and Exegesis 8 1.2.1. Motivation: The Islamic Case 8 1.2.2. A General Model of Decision Making and Exegesis 11 1.2.3. From an Individual to a Community 25 1.3. Exegetic Rationales and Degrees of Hermeneutic Flexibility 26 1.4. A Characterization of the H anafıلا s 30 1.4.1. Results 30 1.4.2. Previous Work in the Field 34 2. Preliminaries 40 2.1. The لا H anafı School and the Case Studies 40 2.2. The Scholars 43 2.3. Undesirable as a Technical Term 47 3. Women Praying with Men: Adjacency 50 3.1. The Formative Background 50 3.2. Adjacency: The Two-Body Problem 53 3.2.1. Partitions and Gaps 54 3.3. Justification: Keep Them Behind! 56 3.4. The Multibody Problem and the Origin of the Adjacency Law 60 3.5. New Justifications 65 3.6. Adjacency: Willing Out Female Worshippers 71 vii
viii Contents 3.7. Conclusion 74 Excursus: Women Leading Men 74 4. Women Praying with Women 76 4.1. The Formative Background 76 4.2. Formation of the Standard Position: لا Abu H anıلا fa لا nıلاnaلا al-marghı to 77 لا nıلاnaلا Al-Marghı 4.3. Justifying the Standard Position: لا birtıلاal-ba to 81 لا al- Aynı al-dıلا n 4.4. The Maverick: Badr 87 4.4.1. Arguing from Tradition 87 4.4.2. The Isnaلاds of the Traditions 88 اكبرal- Aynı 4.4.3. Summing up 89 4.5. On the Fence: Ibn al-humaلاm 91 4.6. Later لا H anafı Law 93 4.7. The Counterexample from Funeral Prayers 96 4.8. Two More Issues 99 4.8.1. Does Leadership Really Entail Improper Exposure? 99 4.8.2. Did the Abrogation Remove Permissibility? 100 4.9. Concluding Remarks 101 5. Women Praying with Men: Communal Prayers 105 5.1. Introduction 105 لا rıلا al-qudu H anıلا fa to لا Abu Law: لا H anafı 5.2. Early 106 5.2.1. The Two I d Prayers 106 5.2.2. The Daily and Friday Prayers 109 اكبرwıal-Taha 5.2.3. After 112 لا Al- Aynı 5.3. 118 5.4. Ibn al-humaلاm s Recipe for Legal Change 120 5.5. After Ibn al-humaلاm 124 6. The Historical Development of اكبرH anafı Reasoning 128 6.1. The Forming Canon: لا H anafı Beginnings 128 6.2. The Shifting Canon: The Rise of H adıلا th-folk Ideology 135 6.3. The Canon and Interpretation in Mature لا H anafı Thought 136 7. From Laws to Values 141 7.1. Introduction 141 7.2. The Acceptability of Laws Birthed by Unacceptable Values 143 7.3. Justifications Need Not Reflect Motives 147 7.4. Jurists Reflections on Social Reality 148 7.5. The Jurist as Part of a Corporate Entity 150 7.6. From Laws to Society: What We Can Learn 153 7.7. Conclusion: Seeing Law as Law 154 Excursus: A Historian s Public Reason 161
Contents ix 8. The Logic of Law Making 163 8.1. Introduction 163 8.2. Reasoning with Legal Principles 166 8.3. Formal Exegesis of the Canon 171 8.3.1. Exegetic Rationales and Hermeneutic Flexibility in Practice 174 Appendix: The Authenticity of Early لا H anafı Texts: Two Books لا nıلاal-shayba of 177 Introduction 177 The Corpora in the Kitab al-athar and Their Common Features 179 The P-Corpus 181 The Q-Corpus 182 The Relationship between P and Q 183 The Date of P and Q 184 Comparisons with al-muwat t a 188 The Question of Later Editing or Rewriting 191 The Traditions about لا Abu H anıلا fa and Ibraلاhıلا m 192 The Traditions of Maلاlik b. Anas 195 Conclusion 195 Postscript: Later Trajectories 196 Bibliography 201 لا H anafı Legal Texts 201 Other Premodern or Early Modern Sources 204 Modern Sources 205 Index 211
Preface What makes laws endure or change? When a law changes, how does a tradition of legal interpretation justify the innovation in light of its legal precedents and foundational texts? What is the function of the reasons given for laws? What relationship does law bear to social values? These interrelated questions fall under the heading of philosophy of law, yet it is mainly through the study of history that they can be probed. Answering these questions in different cultural and historical settings is a prerequisite for developing a general theory of law, for it makes distinguishing universal elements from culturally specific parameters possible. In particular, a culturally specific feature of Islamic law is its religious character. One may ask, therefore, whether the fact that Muslim legal traditions invoke sacred authority makes an essential difference to the way the questions posed above are answered. In other words, does sacred law operate in a fundamentally different way from secular law? This book explores these questions through a study of the largest legal tradition in Islam, namely the اكبرH anafı school of law. The book begins by creating a general model of juristic decision making that describes any legal tradition, Islamic or not, in terms of a number of parameters. It does not presuppose that all legal traditions are identical, for the parameters in the model may vary from one tradition to another. A central task of the book is to determine those parameters in the اكبرH anafı case. This is achieved through diachronic historical case studies related to laws on women and prayer. The book examines how certain اكبرH anafı laws, and the reasons اكبرH anafı jurists gave for those laws, evolved from the eighth century to the eighteenth century as reflected in the opinions of some thirty jurists. xi
xii Preface Premodern Islamic law as formulated in the four اكبرSunnı legal traditions is sometimes described as the end product of the process of interpreting the foundational texts, namely the Qur an and the hadıلا ths (sayings of the Prophet). Jurists are said to have attempted to derive the laws from these sources. This impression owes to the fact that a legal reason (i.e., the reason a jurist gives for a law) often takes the form of a specific interpretation of the Qur an and hadıلا ths, suggesting that the process of interpreting these sources is what generated the law. On this view, these texts represented the starting point of jurisprudence, and the laws its outcome. The transformation of the textual raw material into the laws is said to have taken place through the application of established, recognized methods of interpretation, methods that are described in the classical Islamic genre of legal theory, the usuلا l al-fiqh. The book shows that in fact, at least in the اكبرH anafı case, this image must be turned on its head. What is thought to be the outcome of jurisprudence, namely the laws, are actually the starting point for the jurist. The end product, on the other hand, is an interpretation that reconciles the law with the textual sources, the Qur an and the Prophet s sayings. The role of the methods of interpretation, therefore, is not to generate the laws, but rather to reconcile them with the textual sources. The hermeneutic standards governing the process of interpretation can be seen to be so loose as to be inherently incapable of generating laws. They are so flexible that they can be used to reconcile just about any conceivable candidate for the law with the textual sources. Providing maximal indeterminacy, these standards do not constrain the jurist to adopt one possibility (as to what the legal outcome should be in a given matter) to the exclusion of another. If the binding texts (the Qur an and the hadıلا ths) and the standards of textual interpretation did not determine the laws, the question arises, what did? If the hermeneutic methods imposed no constraint on the laws, does this mean, then, that jurists had a free hand in fashioning the laws as they wished? No, in fact there were severe constraints on the laws. The primary constraint was imposed by the need for legal continuity: normally a law would not change, even if it failed to mirror new social values, as long as it did not become intolerable or highly undesirable. If a person living in the premodern period asked, Why is this the law? the correct answer would have been simply, because this used to be the law, unless this was a new law, in which case the answer would have been, because the old one became intolerable or highly undesirable due to new social conditions. On this account, present law was a function only
Preface xiii of the interaction between past law and new social realities; the reading of foundational sources played no causal role in the evolution of law although it may have played a role in its genesis. This account happens to be a good approximation of the dynamics of secular law, which have been delineated by the legal historian Alan Watson based on his studies in a variety of legal traditions. Thus, at least as far as the fundamental اكبرH anafı question of how present law relates to past law is concerned, the legal tradition is similar to secular law notwithstanding its otherwise religious character. The indeterminacy of the exegetical bridge that linked the laws with اكبرH anafı the textual sources had important historical ramifications for jurisprudence. This bridge was constructed of exegetic rationales, that is, statements of the type, this verse abrogates (or qualifies) that one. The flexibility with which exegetical rationales were deployed ensured that any conceivable candidate for the law could be reconciled with the binding texts, and, conversely, that changes in what counted as a binding text did not destabilize the laws. The exegetical bridge did not collapse when the ground shifted on either side of it. When the ground shifted on the side of the laws, for example, when the H anafıاكبرs were compelled to change a law due to new social values or circumstances, hermeneutic flexibility allowed them to reconcile the new law with the textual sources, thus enabling legal change. On the other hand, when the ground shifted on the side of the textual foundations, hermeneutic flexibility served the interests of legal continuity by helping to protect the laws from the impact of the changing texts. This happened in the aftermath of the triumph of the H adıاكبرth-folk ideology in the ninth century, when many a hadıلا th that at face value contradicted established اكبرH anafı laws came to be regarded as binding. This did not force jurists to give up the laws, for hermeneutic flexibility allowed them to neutralize the newly binding texts through interpretation. This episode represented an expansion of the textual basis, but in later centuries there were also contractions. The textual foundations diminished when the Prophetic sayings that had been cited in support of certain laws were disqualified for having been found inauthentic. This did not spell the end of the laws seemingly resting on the disqualified texts. Rather, the laws were furnished new justifications. Hermeneutic flexibility allowed jurists to devise new exegetic rationales to replace those based on the now-lost texts. The metaphor of a pliable bridge stands for the malleability and revisability of legal reasons and, in particular, of exegetic rationales. Legal reasons (i.e., the reasons jurists gave for the laws) surrounded the laws,
xiv Preface forming a protective cushion that absorbed the impact of contrary evidence. The dispensability of legal reasons manifested itself in the historical pattern of the relative stability of laws compared to the reasons given for them. This historical pattern, combined with logical analysis, shows that even though legal reasons logically precede laws, there is an important sense in which they are secondary to the laws: reasons are actually devised to explain existing or newly desired laws. More often than not, they neither cause nor motivate the laws. The Contribution Made by This Book Academics are sometimes asked by their colleagues to enumerate concisely the ways in which their contributions differ from those of other researchers. I will do so briefly in the hope that it will be useful for some readers. First, the broad characterization of juristic thought that I just sketched out and that I will flesh out in this book is largely original, though it certainly resonates with the works of other researchers in some of its particulars. To accept this new picture as a whole is to experience a gestalt shift in which familiar concepts are seen in a new light. For example, techniques such as abrogation, qualification, and analogy that are almost universally described in the academic literature as methods for generating the laws are now seen to operate in the reverse direction, with the laws as their starting point. Second, the existing academic literature describes premodern methods of scriptural exegesis, but in doing so it normally relies on Muslim works of legal theory, the usuلا l al-fiqh genre, a field that was devoted to determining the proper methods of interpreting the Qur an and H adıلا th. Scholars usually do not take into account that the principles that premodern legal thinkers expounded in this genre were not always applied in practice. To investigate hermeneutics in practice, one should examine the genres in which the laws were developed and justified, namely those of positive law ( لا ruلا fu ) and legal opinions.(لاwaلاfata ) To my knowledge, this is the first book-length and diachronic study of scriptural hermeneutics in postformative positive law. Third, as a contribution to Islamic legal studies, this book is methodologically distinct. It is an explicitly framework-driven study. My intention is not to say all that is important about the H anafıاكبرs or the legal case studies, nor to engage with every important result reached in recent scholarship. Rather, the study narrowly pursues specific objectives: I approach
Cambridge University Press Preface xv the legal case studies to investigate the questions generated by the framework devised in Chapter 1, a schema that is well suited to comparative study and the investigation of the causes of continuity and change. Fourth, in relation to its objectives, not only does the study characterize mainstream methodology in the H anafı ﷳ school, but also it identifies and describes the few H anafı ﷳ jurists who did not follow this typical H anafı ﷳ approach. Fifth, the framework-driven case studies lead to conclusions elaborated in the final three chapters that enrich some of the ways in which Islamic legal thought is normally understood. These address questions such as the relationship between laws and values, the dynamics and mechanics of legal change and continuity, the concrete ways such dynamics were manifested in H anafı ﷳ thought over the centuries, and the specific justificatory strategies that made continuity or change possible. No contribution is without limitations. This book s results could be tested and refined by additional case studies. The conclusions about the role of social values could be further tested and enriched by research into extralegal literature. Important questions related to the case studies other than those treated in this work could certainly be investigated. Outline of the Book The first two chapters are introductory in nature. Chapter 1 introduces a general framework for the study of any legal tradition, Islamic or not. This framework underpins the subsequent historical case studies. Chapter 2 introduces, briefly, the H anafı ﷳ school of law and the legal subject matter of the case studies. The next three chapters, Chapters 3 to 5, comprise the diachronic case studies at the heart of the book, treating certain laws concerning women and group prayer. They focus on legal reasons, their relationship to laws, and the question of continuity and change. On the basis of these case studies the last three chapters, Chapters 6 to 8, address broad questions of philosophical and historical interest. Chapter 6, The Historical Development of H anafı ﷳ Reasoning, gives a brief description of the historical trajectory of H anafı ﷳ legal interpretation in light of the case studies. It describes how the expansion and shrinking of the corpus of binding texts impacted the laws expansion in the aftermath of the rise of H adı ﷳ th-folk ideology, and contraction in later centuries as some h adı ﻹ ths that jurists had formerly relied upon were disqualified.
Cambridge University Press xvi Preface Chapter 7, From Laws to Values, attempts to explain what one can learn about a society from its laws and legal literature. It emerges that one can learn less than is commonly thought. I argue that law has dynamics of its own that distinguish it from other elements of social reality, and that law is not reducible to the values of a community, essential cultural or religious tenets, or the ideologies of ruling elites. Chapter 8, The Logic of Law Making, offers an analysis of the structure of legal reasoning, discussing how legal reasons change in order to accommodate changes in laws. It also characterizes the ways in which exegetic rationales involving qualification, abrogation, and analogy are used to ensure hermeneutic flexibility. The Appendix establishes the authenticity of the earliest H anafı ﷳ texts that are used in Chapters 3 to 6. A Skimmer s Guide Those who would like to read the conclusions about the nature of legal reasoning without the detailed arguments for them are urged to read the preface, Chapters 1, 7, and 8 and Sections 6.2 and 6.3. (They ought to withhold judgment, however, unless they give the case studies in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 a careful reading.) Readers who are primarily interested in the laws themselves, for example, because of their interest in gender norms, should read Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5. For a discussion of what the laws imply about the social values bearing on women and gender, they can read Chapter 7. Those who are interested in the historical development of the H anafı ﷳ school of law but not in philosophical questions may read Chapters 2 and 6 and the Appendix. Readers who are interested only in the first century of Islam will find that Chapters 3, 4, and 5 begin with the formative backgrounds of the legal case studies and that the Appendix concerns the dating of traditions and texts. Miscellanea Two authors may use the same word and mean different things by it. And two authors may use different words and by them mean the same thing. Obviously, a word is often used in more than one sense. Since no sense is inherently better than any other, one need not argue over the right definition. But authors can minimize confusion by specifying the sense in
Preface xvii which they use a key term. When an author does so, it becomes incumbent upon readers to substitute the given definition for every occurrence of the term. I use some terms in technical senses. To make it easier for readers to keep track of them and their definitions, I bring most of them together in the list Key Technical Definitions. A note on dates: a لا hijrı year overlaps two consecutive years in the Gregorian calendar. For simplicity, I often give only one of these years. The lowercase hadıلا th refers to an individual report about the Prophet while the uppercase H adıلا th refers to the corpus of such reports.
Acknowledgments In writing this book, I have benefited immensely from the advice and criticisms of Michael Cook, Hossein Modarressi, and Patricia Crone. I am extremely grateful to them for this and for the numerous other ways they have supported me. I thank Sarah Kistler, Mairaj Syed, Ruth Miller, Karen Bauer, Brent Sockness, Lee Yearley, Christopher Melchert, Vanessa Boren, an anonymous reader, and my students in the Classical Islamic Law seminar at Stanford University for useful comments. I would like to acknowledge my intellectual and personal debts to Kathryn Babayan, Michael Bonner, Sherman Jackson, and Alexander Knysh. The resonance of my work with that of Sherman Jackson will become apparent in the pages that follow. I revised a portion of this work as a Frank H. Kenan Fellow at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina; I thank Geoffrey Harpham and the NHC staff for their support. I am grateful to Marigold Acland of Cambridge University Press for her help in bringing this work to press. xix
Key Technical Definitions Term Page number(s) apparent meaning of the canon 19 canon 13 14 canon-blind law 15 exegetic rationale 27 hermeneutic flexibility 16 19 hermeneutic-methodological approach 16 hermeneutic principle 27 legal effect 166 legal inertia 14 legal principle 166 legal reason 11 postformative 4, 40 1 precedent-blind, canon-blind law 19 20 public reason 147 pure hermeneutic approach 16 received law 14 revisable/revisability 1 2 technical term 13 14 values 14 xxi