Authority and Plurality in Muslim Legal Traditions

The Case of Ismaili Law

Bibliographic Data

ID9532068
AuthorsArif Jamal (0000-0002-8239-0158, National University of Singapore, corresponding author), Arif A Jamal (National University of Singapore)
Year2019
Publication date2019-10-31
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe American Journal of Comparative Law (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-919X • E-ISSN: 2326-9197
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ajcl/avz023
OpenAlexW2791956890
LanguageEN
Citations received3

Thoughtful commentators on Islamic law often point out that Islamic law exhibits great interpretational diversity. Typically, this plurality is evidenced by the range of opinions or articulations of the rule in the face of any question or issue. At the level of sources, accounts of Islamic law have often emphasized the reliance on a set of major sources or roots of law, with other lesser sources. Scholarly works have acknowledged that matters are more complex than this and that different Muslim traditions may employ a different range of sources. Nonetheless, source plurality, and in particular how this source plurality is expressed in minority traditions, is underexplored. Focusing on the case of contemporary Nizari Ismaili law this Article will help to demonstrate the expression of source plurality in Islamic law. In so doing, this discussion aims to enrich the understanding of plurality in Islamic law to include not only the plurality of answers or rules on different issues but also the plurality of sources

Diversity (politics) · Face (sociological concept) · Islam · Legal culture · Political science · Set (abstract data type) · Sharia · Social science · Sociology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Computer Science · History · Islamic Finance and Banking Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Law

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