Description
Book SynopsisAron Zysow's 1984 PhD dissertation, 'The Economy of Certainty,' remains the most important, compelling, and intellectually ambitious treatment of Islamic legal theory (usul al-fiqh) in Western scholarship to date. It continues to be widely read and cited, and remains unsurpassed in its incisive analysis of the fundamental assumptions of Islamic legal thought.
Zysow's important work is published here in full, for the first time, with updated references, further reflections by the author, and with the addition of a nine-page Foreword by Robert Gleave.
Zysow argues that the great dividing line in Islamic legal thought is between those legal theories that require certainty in every detail of the law and those that will admit probability. The latter were historically dominant and include the leading legal schools that have survived to our own day. Zahirism and, for much of its history, Twelver Shi'ism, are examples of the former.
The well-known dispute regarding the legitimacy of juridical analogy is only one feature of this fundamental epistemological division, since probability can enter the law in the process of authenticating prophetic traditions and in the interpretation of the revealed texts, as well as through analogy. The notion of consensus in Islamic legal theory functioned to reintroduce some measure of certainty into the law by identifying one of the competing probable solutions as correct. Consequently, consensus has only a reduced role in those systems that reject probability. Another, more radical, means of regaining certainty was the doctrine that regarded the legal reasoning of all qualified jurists on matters of probability as infallible. The development of legal theories of both types was to a large extent shaped by theology and, most significantly, by Mu'tazilism, and subsequently by Ash'arism and Maturidism.
Trade Review
'The importance of The Economy of Certainty to the study of Islamic legal theory is a tribute to the precision employed at its inception…. In many disciplines, thirty-year-old research borders on being antique; however, when read today, Zysow’s presentation retains both its originality and its authority…. It has been read and reread by those working on us.u-l, and now, hopefully, those working in linked fields of enquiry will be able to benefit from Zysow’s masterly account of the epistemological and theological factors which make us.u-l al-fiqh such adistinctive and absorbing theory of law.' (Robert Gleave, University of Exeter)
'It is no exaggeration to say that Zysow's contribution is the single most important work on Islamic legal theory (us.u-l al-fiqh) in any western language.' (Marc Herman, Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization)
Table of ContentsSeries Editor's Preface
Foreword
Author's Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Authentication of Prophetic Traditions
2. Interpretation
3. Consensus
4. Analogy
5. IJTIHÄD
Epilogue
Bibliography
Works Cited in the Addenda and Preface
Table of Page Correspondences
Index of Qur'än Citations
Index of Arabic Terms and Proper Names
