Islamic Law, Epistemology and Modernity

by Dahlen,Ashk

• ISBN13: 9780415945295
• ISBN10: 0415945291
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Dahlen provides a comprehensive analysis of the major intellectual positions in the philosophical debate on Islamic law that is occuring in contemporary Iran, in light of the relationship between global modernity and the religion of Islam.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
List of transliteration	xi
Introduction	3	(36)
Purpose and nature of the study	3	(4)
Theory and methodology	7	(7)
Previous research	14	(5)
Introductionary remarks on analytical concepts	19	(6)
Modernity, postmodernism and secularism	25	(14)
The Nature of Islamic law	39	(16)
An Islamic legal system? Law, jurisprudence and ethics	39	(12)
Law and spirituality: Shi'i esoterism	51	(4)
Categories of traditional Islamic epistemology	55	(22)
Knowledge and science	55	(4)
The 'historical-empirical' epistemic scheme	59	(5)
The `theological', `philosophical' and `mystical' epistemic schemes	64	(5)
The `juristic-rational' epistemic scheme	69	(8)
Shi'i legal dogmatics	77	(26)
Usul al-fiqh (legal theory)	77	(2)
The constant sources of law: The Qur'an, sunnat and ijma (consensus)	79	(3)
The non-constant source of law: 'aql (reason)	82	(5)
Ijtihad (independent reasoning) and taqlid (emulation)	87	(3)
Hauzah-yi 'ilmiyah (`precinct of knowledge')	90	(2)
Hermeneutical principles	92	(5)
Interpretative pluralism and ikhtilaf (divergence)	97	(6)
Islamic traditionalism and Islamic modernism	103	(84)
An Introduction to Islamic traditionalism	106	(20)
The Islamic traditionalist position of 'Abdullah Jawadi-Amuli	126	(17)
An Introduction to Islamic modernism	143	(20)
The Islamic modernist position of Muhammad Mujtahid-Shabistari	163	(24)
Surush on the nature of Islamic law	187	(66)
The Biography of 'Abd al-Karim Surush	187	(7)
Style of communication	194	(3)
Philosophical foundation: Critical realism	197	(5)
Modernity and the West	202	(8)
Religion	210	(13)
Jurisprudence	223	(18)
Ijtihad	241	(5)
Hauzah	246	(7)
Surush's theory of contraction and expansion of religious knowledge	253	(90)
Its principal objectives	253	(2)
History: The Stage of natural man	255	(8)
Critical rationality: Self-determining and liberated	263	(4)
Science: Falsification and corroboration	267	(20)
Religious epistemology: Divine absolute or provisional conjecture?	287	(9)
Epistemological ambiguities: A priori and a posteriori	296	(13)
Epistemic relativism or epistemological relativism	309	(7)
Hermeneutics: There is nothing beyond the text	316	(17)
Divergent interpretations: The Problem of truth and probability	333	(10)
Conclusions	343	(26)
Bibliography	369	(18)
Index	387