The Role of Non-Arab Converts in the Development of Early Islamic Law
Abstract Western scholarship has attached considerable importance to the role played by scholars of non-Arab descent in the formative period of Islamic law and jurisprudence. This view can be challenged. In a sample taken from a biographical collection of important legal scholars compiled in the fif...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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Published: |
Brill
1999
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In: |
Islamic law and society
Year: 1999, Volume: 6, Issue: 3, Pages: 293-317 |
Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | Abstract Western scholarship has attached considerable importance to the role played by scholars of non-Arab descent in the formative period of Islamic law and jurisprudence. This view can be challenged. In a sample taken from a biographical collection of important legal scholars compiled in the fifth/eleventh century, "true" Arabs constituted the majority; three quarters of the non-Arab scholars had an eastern background and came from the regions of the former Sassanian empire; and only a few scholars had clearly Christian or Jewish roots. This result lends no support to the assumption that jurists of non-Arab descent brought solutions from their natal legal systems — Roman, Roman provincial and Jewish law — to early Islamic law. |
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ISSN: | 1568-5195 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Islamic law and society
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/1568519991223793 |