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Mapping Change in Islamic Law, Rules and Practices

Project description

Mapping the evolution of Sharia, from revealed law to juridical system

Sharia, the longstanding law of Muslim jurists, is a significant issue in both Muslim and Western societies today. It represents the unchangeable law of God in Muslim beliefs and has profoundly impacted Muslim culture. With this in mind, the ERC-funded MCILRaP project explores the concept of legal authority in Muslim religious law. By studying legal casework, it addresses the paradox between timeless law and observable legal adaptations. MCILRaP is developing a new method for mapping rulings in context to describe the casework of jurists’ law. The project aims to provide evidence of historical developments that transformed Sharia, previously considered only Revealed Law, into a juridical rule system that persisted until the 19th century.

Objective

This project launches a historical inquiry into the phenomenon of legal authority in Muslim religious law. Sharia, a term that designated, for centuries, the Muslim jurists law, is undoubtedly a major issue in the Muslim world and, to a different degree, in Western societies today. As representing Gods law in Muslim believes, Sharia is perceived as unchangeable, and, in Western scholarship often as a deontology. MCILRaP takes a radically new approach in explaining the obvious paradox between timeless law and observable legal adaptations by studying legal casuistry, not single rules. In casuistry, rules are fixed as laws; and adding rules for specific or other cases limits existing rules application and allows for different solutions, which may be viewed as a legal change. To describe the casuistry of the jurists law for the first time in detail, MCILRaP creates a new method of mapping rulings in context. Thousands of law books and other juridical texts constitute relics of legal thinking in its redaction period. MCILRaP pioneers a comprehensive survey of this source material that necessarily proceeds at different analytical levels, by: a) widely cataloguing works according to author and subject-matter, b) the in-depth mapping of juridical rules in selected law books, and c) determining the conceptual links between juridical rules and detailed real case practices.
The project creates a dataset from original source material and devises tools for visualising legal casuistry. By its research on Islamic law, MCILRaP provides evidence for historical law developments that turned Sharia, formerly only Revealed Law, into a juridical rule system that lasted until the 19th century. The centuries-long impact of Sharia law on Muslim culture is what has triggered todays understanding of sacred Sharia laws in the Quran and Prophetic Tradition. MILRaP will open new paths of inquiry, create methods and data, and by this fundamentally change the study of Islamic law.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2023-ADG

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Host institution

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 277 790,00
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 277 790,00

Beneficiaries (2)

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