Periodic Reporting for period 4 - LAWALISI (Law, Authority and Learning in Imami Shi'ite Islam)
Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2022-08-31
The Law, Authority and Learning in Imami Shiite Islam project (LAWALISI) aimed to reformulate, in a fundamental way, current academic research on Islamic law and its institutions. Understanding the intellectual structure and the operation of the Islamic legal system has emerged as a major research focus in the 20th and 21st centuries. Muslim movements usually include a call for a restoration of the Sharīʿa as a key element of their programme of political and religious change, revealing how central this idea is to Muslim identity and belief through history. Much research to date focuses solely on Sunni Muslim legal developments. The project challenged this general tendency in the field by producing a series of advanced research publications and a focusses research database (Twelver Usul Bibliography) in which the contribution of one non-Sunni tradition of legal thought, Shiʿite jurisprudence (specifically Imāmī or Twelver Shīʿī jurisprudence), was presented as integrated into the general account of the development of Islamic legal thought.
The major contribution to society was a deeper understanding of Islamic law, which is associated with terms such as Sharia. This term is used widely and inaccurately in the media and in popular discourse. One of the aims of the project was to challenge the way in which Sharia is talked about in popular discourse by complicating the term. Many think it is simple - in fact Islamic law is extremely complex and varied. Many think it is monolithic - in fact, as the study of Imami Shi’i law and the LAWALISI project demonstrates, it is diverse and multiple.
In the project, we examined the theories and methods used by scholars in the study of Islamic law, derived mainly from Sunni sources, and tested them against the Shi’ite legal literature. The project demonstrated that a non-Sunni tradition of Islamic legal thought, in this case Imami Shi’i law, can illuminate and enrich the general history of Islamic law. At times, Shi'ite law shares features with other legal schools; at other times it provides an alternative account, challenging long held assumptions concerning Islam’s legal development. One of the project’s achievements was to demonstrate to the wider field that scholarship on Islamic law is significantly enriched by greater scholarly recognition of the contribution of non-Sunni legal traditions to the formation, history and development of Islamic legal thought. By demonstrating the contribution made by the Shīʿī jurists (particularly those of the Imāmī (Twelver) Shīʿī school) to the development of Islamic legal scholarship, the project has, we hope, has a lasting effect on the academic study of the Muslim legal tradition. in particular, the project examined the specific areas of:
(i) ideas concerning the formation of the Islamic legal schools
(ii) the relationship between legal theory and legal doctrine
(iii) the purpose of the legal commentary and the phenomenon of legal change,
In each of these areas, the scholarship was dominated by Sunni sources - this project has, we feel, adjusted this, and in future research, a wider range of sources will be used by researchers.
The major contribution to society was a deeper understanding of Islamic law, which is associated with terms such as Sharia. This term is used widely and inaccurately in the media and in popular discourse. One of the aims of the project was to challenge the way in which Sharia is talked about in popular discourse by complicating the term. Many think it is simple - in fact Islamic law is extremely complex and varied. Many think it is monolithic - in fact, as the study of Imami Shi’i law and the LAWALISI project demonstrates, it is diverse and multiple.
In the project, we examined the theories and methods used by scholars in the study of Islamic law, derived mainly from Sunni sources, and tested them against the Shi’ite legal literature. The project demonstrated that a non-Sunni tradition of Islamic legal thought, in this case Imami Shi’i law, can illuminate and enrich the general history of Islamic law. At times, Shi'ite law shares features with other legal schools; at other times it provides an alternative account, challenging long held assumptions concerning Islam’s legal development. One of the project’s achievements was to demonstrate to the wider field that scholarship on Islamic law is significantly enriched by greater scholarly recognition of the contribution of non-Sunni legal traditions to the formation, history and development of Islamic legal thought. By demonstrating the contribution made by the Shīʿī jurists (particularly those of the Imāmī (Twelver) Shīʿī school) to the development of Islamic legal scholarship, the project has, we hope, has a lasting effect on the academic study of the Muslim legal tradition. in particular, the project examined the specific areas of:
(i) ideas concerning the formation of the Islamic legal schools
(ii) the relationship between legal theory and legal doctrine
(iii) the purpose of the legal commentary and the phenomenon of legal change,
In each of these areas, the scholarship was dominated by Sunni sources - this project has, we feel, adjusted this, and in future research, a wider range of sources will be used by researchers.
In the project focussed has been on three major research themes:
1. The Imāmī School: Origins, Role and Prospects, examining the process and institutionalization of Imāmī Shīʿī madhhab formation and how this informs our understanding of legal school formation in Islamic history more generally.
2. Legal Theory/Legal Doctrine examining the appearance and development of legal theory and its relationship to the production of legal norms, and how the Imāmī literature of uṣūl al-fiqh provides a particular perspective on this much debated scholarly issue.
3. Fatwas and Fiqh focussing on the development of a body of legal doctrine (fiqh, also expressed in fatwās), and carrying out a comparative analysis of how commentaries on legal texts functioned to form a legal tradition and facilitate doctrinal change.
These are technical and specific areas of the study of Islamic law - and which remain on the whole unanswered. Therefore the "state of the art" was only to use Sunni materials to answer the questions concerning school formation, theory and doctrine relationships and how fatwas are given and how they are received. Our work in the project has moved beyond this through:
1. Outputs. The outputs listed in the dissemination section are, collectively an attempt to re-position Islamic legal thinking and include Imami Shi’ism (and non-Sunni schools more generally) within the wider field.
2. Seminars and workshops:
The project held 2-monthly workshops in which scholars of Sunni and Shii law gather together to read each others sources and formulate legal arguments. During the covid pandemic, these groups met online.
3. Dissemination: The project team has been involved in numerous presentations at conference and workshops and has organised its own workshops and conferences. A list of these can be found on the project website www.lawalisi.eu.
4. Fieldwork: though the covid pandemic restricted travel in relation to the project, members of the project conducted fieldwork in Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, the United States and Germany. This include not only source acquisition (manuscripts and other sources), but more importantly meeting with and discussing with local scholars concerning the project, its aims and objectives and its impact on the field.
1. The Imāmī School: Origins, Role and Prospects, examining the process and institutionalization of Imāmī Shīʿī madhhab formation and how this informs our understanding of legal school formation in Islamic history more generally.
2. Legal Theory/Legal Doctrine examining the appearance and development of legal theory and its relationship to the production of legal norms, and how the Imāmī literature of uṣūl al-fiqh provides a particular perspective on this much debated scholarly issue.
3. Fatwas and Fiqh focussing on the development of a body of legal doctrine (fiqh, also expressed in fatwās), and carrying out a comparative analysis of how commentaries on legal texts functioned to form a legal tradition and facilitate doctrinal change.
These are technical and specific areas of the study of Islamic law - and which remain on the whole unanswered. Therefore the "state of the art" was only to use Sunni materials to answer the questions concerning school formation, theory and doctrine relationships and how fatwas are given and how they are received. Our work in the project has moved beyond this through:
1. Outputs. The outputs listed in the dissemination section are, collectively an attempt to re-position Islamic legal thinking and include Imami Shi’ism (and non-Sunni schools more generally) within the wider field.
2. Seminars and workshops:
The project held 2-monthly workshops in which scholars of Sunni and Shii law gather together to read each others sources and formulate legal arguments. During the covid pandemic, these groups met online.
3. Dissemination: The project team has been involved in numerous presentations at conference and workshops and has organised its own workshops and conferences. A list of these can be found on the project website www.lawalisi.eu.
4. Fieldwork: though the covid pandemic restricted travel in relation to the project, members of the project conducted fieldwork in Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, the United States and Germany. This include not only source acquisition (manuscripts and other sources), but more importantly meeting with and discussing with local scholars concerning the project, its aims and objectives and its impact on the field.
The project had a major impact, we feel, on the field as a whole. There are very few introductory or general surveys of areas of Islamic law now which do not consider the Shii contribution – this is, in part, due to the on-going pressure the project has exerted on the field. Few scholars would now say that these contributions are marginal or of lesser interest. They are now central. Brining in traditionally marginalised voices has been a trend across academic in recent years, and this is exemplified in the LAWALISI project. More information on this can be found on the project website www.lawalisi.eu