This collection of papers is the result of a two-day conference held in August 2015 in St Aidanâs College at Durham University, organised jointly by the Al-Mahdi Institute in Birmingham and Durhamâs research group Islam, Law and Modernity (ILM). It was an attempt to give a voice to the ShÄ« ÍÄ« side of Islamic jurisprudence, since most of the discussions about SharÄ« Ía that is in the public domain these days, and has been for some time, are centered on the rich material provided over the centuries by SunnÄ« jurisprudence.
The majority of modern political Islamist teaching and rhetoric is in fact based on an often corrupt understanding of SunnÄ« scholars who mainly lived and taught centuries ago. SunnÄ« jurisprudence has been concerned to a large degree with the right balance between adhering to tradition and consensus on the one hand (taqlÄ«d and ijmÄâ ʾ), and the need for adapting to modern times (ijtihÄd) on the other. This is frequently highlighted by the debate surrounding the closure of the âgate to ijtihÄdâ in the 10th century. Adaptation to modern circumstances is seen by the more conservative section of the SunnÄ« ÍulamÄ as bid Ía, or unlawful innovation.
ShÄ« ÍÄ« jurisprudence has a similarly long pedigree and is, of course, subject to similar conditions and struggles between the demands of modernisation and the reluctance of the traditional conservative spectrum. However, and this is something which becomes clear when discussing legal philosophy with ShÄ« ÍÄ« scholars from the renowned schools of Iran in particular, there is an avid desire even among religiously traditional scholars to engage with ideas and concepts from foreign backgrounds. As one of the editors experienced personally when first attending a conference of ShÄ« ÍÄ« scholars at Durham University, and later on a seminar at the Al-Mahdi Institute, the frequency, ease and mastery with which these scholars engaged with European thinkers such as Hegel, Kant, Schleiermacher, or Kierkegaard in order to make a comparative point, was breath-taking, and something he had not encountered to the same degree in similar venues with SunnÄ« colleagues.
Thus, it seems that a wider and better dissemination of ShÄ« ÍÄ« thought has the potential of adding a new and exciting aspect to the intercultural and interreligious conversation about the SharÄ« ÍÄ. The chapters in this volume are meant to be a contribution to the discussion about legal theory approaches that we hope will prove fruitful for the comparative field as well as those with a specific interest in Islamic legal thought.
We would like to express our deep gratitude to Dr Susan Frenk, Principal of St Aidanâs College, for the generous additional support from the College. Thanks are also due to Shaykh Arif Abdul Hussain and the Al-Mahdi Institute for their support throughout, and in particular during the somewhat arduous process of collecting and converting the conference papers in to the form presented here. We are also grateful for the assistance of Nazmina Dhanji and Mohsin Najafi.
Ali-Reza Bhojani
Laurens de Rooij
Michael Bohlander
Oxford, Chester, and Durham
August 2019