Doubt in Islamic Law

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, 2015 - History - 414 pages
This book considers an important and largely neglected area of Islamic law by exploring how medieval Muslim jurists resolved criminal cases that could not be proven beyond a doubt. Intisar A. Rabb calls into question a controversial popular notion about Islamic law today, which is that Islamic law is a divine legal tradition that has little room for discretion or doubt, particularly in Islamic criminal law. Despite its contemporary popularity, that notion turns out to have been far outside the mainstream of Islamic law for most of its history. Instead of rejecting doubt, medieval Muslim scholars largely embraced it. In fact, they used doubt to enlarge their own power and to construct Islamic criminal law itself. Through a close examination of legal, historical, and theological sources, and a range of illustrative case studies, this book shows that Muslim jurists developed a highly sophisticated and regulated system for dealing with Islam's unique concept of doubt, which evolved from the seventh to the sixteenth century.
 

Contents

Introduction
10
I
16
2
41
Judicial Practice
48
MORALITY AND SOCIAL CONTEXT FIRST
67
48
83
69
90
Doubt as Moral Concern
107
Accommodation of Legal
204
Strict Liability as Definitions of Moral Values
222
Strict Textualism in Opposition to Doubt
229
Dueling Theories of Delegation
260
Doubt in Comparative and Contemporary Context
317
Appendices
323
Doubt
348
Bibliography
359

THE JURISPRUDENCE OF DOUBT SECOND
133
Substantive Procedural and Interpretive
185

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About the author (2015)

Intisar A. Rabb is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the director of its Islamic Legal Studies Program. She also holds an appointment as a Professor of History and as Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Massachusetts.