Mukhtaṣar Workshop Report

Hakki Arslan

The Function of late Mukhtasars in the Hanafi tradition: Mulla Khusraw’s (d. 1480) Ghurar al-aḥkām and Ibrahim al-Halabi's (d. 1549) al-Multaqā in comparison

In my paper I will focus on the late mukhtaṣar works in the Hanafi school and specifically on Mulla Khusraw’s al-Ghurar, which was commented by the author himself and then became widespread with more than 90 commentaries in the following four centuries. Why did Mulla Khusraw write a new mukhtaṣar and what’s the difference to the other existing mukhtasars? We have indications that the mukhtaṣar of Mulla Khusraw does not follow the madhhab rules to the same extent as other mukhtaṣars, but rathter include fatwā postions.

The mutun or mukhtaṣars have the function of transmitting the school opinion and have to be abstract and general, that’s why it is not allowed to integrate new and contextualized issues to these texts. The mutun are not the place for discussiong or integrating new issues. To identify the concrete difference between Molla Khusraws work and the other mukhtasars I will compare al-Ghurar with al-Ḥalabīs al-Multaqā from the same period and ask the question, why the late mukhtaṣar was considered as reliable but not Molla Khusraw’s one? Where does Mulla Khusraw integrate fatwā-issues and where does he deviate for example from al-Multaqā? By doing this I hope to show the function of a mukhtaṣar in the late Hanafi period more clearly.

Mohmmad Gharaibeh

Canonization, Codification and Education - Ḥanbalī Jurisprudence in Damascus in the 13^th century

The Ḥanbalī school of thought has attracted much research because of the political and social activism of their members, such as Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal himself, Ibn Taymiyya or Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. However, processes of codification and canonization of the Ḥanbalī jurisprudence hasn’t been subject to a study so far. The proposed paper will look into the writings of Ibn Qudāma al-Maqdisī (d. 620/1223) from this very perspective. The four works that stand in the center of the analysis follow a certain logic that aim for an institutionalization of Ḥanbalī education and a codification and canonization of the school’s doctrine within the juridical and educational system of Ayyūbid and Mamluk Damascus. They introduce students of Ḥanbalī law to the agreed-upon doctrines in the first work, while gradually progressing and introducing more complexity with each of the other three writings. With this Ibn Qudāma lays the ground stone for the institutionalization and codification of the Ḥanbalī school in Damascus for generations to come.

Eirik Hovden and Ebrahim Mansoor

The Kitāb al-azhār by Ibn al-Murtaḍā (d.837/1436-37), its method of standardization and reception

The Kitāb al-azhār was first authored in prison as a textbook of the essence of the Zaydi madhhab. Its form is a relatively short matn, a string of rules, with usually only one option for every rule with no argumentation or comparison. Ibn al-Murtaḍā claims that the Kitāb al-azhār was based on earlier Yemeni Zaydi law manuals such as the Lumaʿ, the Intiṣār and the Tadhkira, and this aricle will investigate which mechanisms of selection and standardization Ibn al-Murtaḍa used. Ibn al-Mutaḍā’s own sharḥ (al-Ghayth al-midrār) on this matn did not become much used, however numerous shurūḥ where composed in the following century. At round 1600 CE the Sharḥ al-azhār had become the standard commentary and supercommentaries on this commentary were added onto the margins, in a standardized way ca 1600-1800CE.

Katharina Ivanyi

A Ḥanafī mukhtaṣar in context: Abū al-Barakāt al-Nasafī‘s (d. 710/1310) Kanz al-daqāʾiq

This paper will examine Abū al-Barakāt al-Nasafī’s (d. 710/1310) Kanz al-daqāʾiq, one of the most preeminent synopses of Ḥanafī fiqh. Widely commented upon, from the immediate post-Mongol period into the early modern and modern eras, al-Nasafī’s mukhtaṣar represents one of the fundamental teaching texts of the Ḥanafī madhhab to this day. My paper will situate Nasafī’s mukhtaṣar in the particular context of its composition, as well as within the wider historical framework of the development of Ḥanafī doctrine in the so-called “post-classical” era. Considering earlier exponents of the genre of the mukhtaṣar in the Ḥanafī tradition, such as al-Ṭahāwī’s (d. 321/933), al-Karkhī’s (d. 340/952) and al-Qudūrī’s (428/1037), as well as the later commentarial tradition on the Kanz itself, this paper aims to situate al-Nasafī’s text within a complex web of jurisprudential discourse that developed through dialectical interplay, involving processes of “standardization,” through abridgement and condensation, i.e. the seeming “reigning in” of opinion, on the one hand, while continuing the explicit articulation, extension and inflection of that very diversity of opinion, on the other.

Mahmood Kooria

“If al-Ghazālī is a Prophet, the Wajīz is His Miracle”: Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s Codification of Shāfiʿī Law

The contributions of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) to philosophy, theology, logic, metaphysics, and Sufism have been widely analyzed. However, few scholars have studied his role as a jurist, despite the fact that he authored ten works on Shāfiʿī law, works that were celebrated in contemporary and later scholarly circles and earned him the title “the second Shāfiʿī.” In this article, I examine his two mukhtaṣars of Shāfiʿī law, the Wajīz and Khulāṣa, in an effort to shed light on the history of codification in the Shāfiʿī school. I argue that al-Ghazālī wrote these texts following upon his two earlier lengthy commentaries in which he canonized school doctrine. In the Wajīz and Khulāṣa, he tried to codify school doctrine by presenting concise, structured and authoritative views and offering straightforward rulings with little discussion of internal disagreement. Al-Ghazālī’s contributions to substantive law challenge the prevailing wisdom on the early history of legal codification. In fact, al-Ghazālī sought to codify and prepare canons of Shāfiʿī law, and his efforts had a significant influence on Islamic legal history and historiography.

Mohamed Noor                                                                   

The Reception and Canonisation of Minhāj al-ṭālibīn on the Swahili Coast in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries                  

Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn wa-ʿUmdat al-Muftīn is an essential fiqh text authored by the Syrian Shāfiʿi jurist Zakariyyā Yaḥyā b. Sharaf al-Nawawī (1233–1277). In the Western Indian Ocean, Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn has long been in use as teaching material in madrasas and as reference material in the qādīs’ courts in the towns of Barawa, Lamu, Mombasa, Zanzibar and Ngazija. This article describes its reception on the Swahili coast and how it acquired an authoritative status leading to canonisation. In investigating this process, the article shall target questions of selection and validation of legal texts, the actors and participants involved, and the role of mukhtaṣars (abridgements) such as Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn in understanding the construction of boundaries of canonicity. To address these questions, the article focuses specifically on the textual legal genre of abridgements as a component that aids the canonisation process within a triple-component application approach of the canonisation concept involving texts, community, and authority. As background to the main argument, the article also traces the historical development of Shāfiʿism in East Africa with a particular focus on its textual connections to Ḥaḍramawt.

Delfina Serrano Ruano

An odd Mālikī Mukhtaṣar: The Tuḥfat al-ḥukkām by Ibn `Āṣim of Granada (1359-1426)

In this article, I explore the Tuḥfat al-ḥukkām fī nukat al-`uqūd wa-l-aḥkām (A gift for judges, book on the details of legal documents and judgments), also known as al-`Āṣimiyya, a compilation of Mālikī legal maxims condensed in 1698 verses in rajaz metre by the Granadan scholar Abū Bakr Muḥammad Ibn `Āṣim (1359-1426).  Though primarily addressed to judges, the Tuḥfa functioned in a way similar to mukhtaṣars in the sense that it has been used for teaching purposes and as a reference for judges until recent times. Moreover, it has been the object of several commentaries, the last of which was written by the first decades of the 20^thcentury in Tunisia.

According to Jacques Berque, while Khalīl's Mukhtaṣar recorded the majority opinions on legal matters where the Mālikīs disagreed among themselves, the legal maxims collected in the Tuḥfa drew from the actual practice of Granadan judges of the Nasrid period (13th-15th centuries). In Morocco, this Granadan judicial practice was later considered to represent Andalusi judicial practice as a whole. With the recent publication of Muhammad Khalid Masud’s entry on Ibn `Āṣim in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Islam Three we’re now in a better position to start working on the Tuḥfa. Still our present knowledge about this legal compilation, despite its documented relevance, continues to be scarce. My contribution aims at filling this gap by inquiring into the circumstances of the inception of the Tuḥfa, the connection between its emergence and the legal policies of the ruling Nasrids, the reasons for its subsequent prestige and popularity, the stages in the process of its canonization, and its relationship with Khalīl’s Mukhtaṣar

Matthew Steele

On Methods, Abridgements, and Authority in the Late Mālikī School: Recovering Khalīl’s Approach to the Mukhtaṣar

This paper explores arguably the best-known legal abridgement of the postformative period, the Mukhtaṣar of Khalīl b. Isḥāq (d. 776/1374).  The incredible density of the text, a feat not since accomplished in the legal literature of the Mālikī school, propelled the Mukhtaṣar atop the legal and teaching institutions of North and West Africa well into the twentieth century.  Its brevity and breadth made the text indispensable for Mālikī jurists in search of the school’s majority view in a given case, while Khalīl’s fractured prose left it virtually unreadable without the tutelage of advanced scholars.  Both worked to render the Mukhtaṣar the Mālikī school’s defining expression and its culminating pursuit, a dual status it would maintain through the dawn of European colonialism.         

While the Mukhtaṣar’s longevity has been noted in the Western literature, there remains little discussion of the actual substance of the text.  This paper focuses not only on its doctrine but the methodology that produced it, an element oft-neglected in studies of the abridgment genre generally.  Through a close reading of select cases included in the Mukhtaṣar, it aims to highlight the ways in which Khalīl sought to reconcile conflicting claims to authority among the Mālikī jurists on one hand, and the competing strictures of revealed proofs on the other.

Hakkı Arslan is a postdoctoral research associate at the collaborative research center for Law and Literature. He teaches Islamic law at the Institute for Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Münster. Prior to this, he worked as a postdoc researcher at the Institute for Islamic Theology at the University of Osnabrück (2014–19) where he had completed his PhD (2015) in the field of Islamic legal hermeneutics with a study on Molla Khusraw’s (d. 885/1480) Uṣūl al-fiqh work Mirqāt al-wuṣūl. His current research project focuses on the relation between fatwa and rasāʾil literature in the 14th–19th centuries. More broadly, Arslan is working on the interrelationship between the different genres of Islamic law in the postclassical period.

Mohammad Gharaibeh is a professor for Islamic Intellectual History at the Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He received his PhD from Bonn Unversity with a thesis on the Divine attributes in Wahhabī modern thinking. In his post-doctoral project, he analyzed the commentarial tradition on the Muqaddima of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and set it in the context of scholarly and educational networks in Damascus and Cairo. His latest publication include a volume on hadith entitled “Beyond Authenticity” which was published at Brill (https://brill.com/display/title/63670).

Eirik Hovden is a scholar of Islamic law and Yemeni history at the University of Bergen, Norway. He is currently the project leader of the TMS starting grant project "Canonization and Codification of Islamic law" 2020-2024 (uib.no/cancode). In 2016-2018, he worked in the HERA-project "Uses of the past in Islamic law". His dissertation (2012) was about the development of Yemeni Zaydī waqf law, later developed into monograph "Waqf in Zaydī Yemen: Legal theory, codification and local practice" (SILS, Brill 2019).

Katharina Ivanyi is a historian of Islam in the pre-modern and modern periods with interests in Islamic law, theology, Sufism and the Islamic philosophical tradition. She received her PhD from Princeton University in 2012 and is currently Elise Richter Fellow at the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Vienna.

Mahmood Kooria holds research positions at Leiden University (the Netherlands) and University of Bergen (Norway).  He was a visiting faculty of History at Ashoka University (India) and National Islamic University in Jakarta (Indonesia). He read his PhD at the Leiden University Institute for History in 2016, authored Islamic Law in Circulation: Shāfiʿī Texts across the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and co-edited Malabar in the Indian Ocean World: Cosmopolitanism in a Maritime Historical Region(Oxford University Press, 2018) and Islamic Law in the Indian Ocean: Texts, Ideas and Practices (Routledge, 2022).                

Mohamed Aidarus is a PhD candidate in the Department of Archaeology, History, Culture Studies, and Religion at the University of Bergen in Norway. He is also a member of the CanCode project. He focuses on analysing changes taking place in Islamic legal texts through the study of the processes of canonisation of Minhāj al-ṭālibīn in Swahili society in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ebrahim Mansoor received his bachelor's degree in Sharīʿa and Law from Sana'a University and his master’s degree in law from Alexandria University. He is currently a third-year Ph.D. candidate in CanCode project at the Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen, Norway. Mansoor is also working as a lecturer in Arabic at the University of Bergen. Upon completion of his PhD, Ebrahim intends to pursue further research on various aspects of Yemeni-Zaydi fiqh developments, particularly from the post-twelfth century, which remain largely unexplored.

Delfina Serrano-Ruano is PhD Tenured Researcher at the Spanish National Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). She specializes in the history of Islamic law and theology. Her research work focuses on the study of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), and its relationship with other Islamic religious sciences such as kalām or discursive theology, and Sufism. Her publications address these issues in their doctrinal and practical aspects, and in specific socio-historical contexts, including the contemporary period.

Matthew Steele is a Ph.D. student in Islamic Studies at Harvard University (PhD defense, Sept. 2023).  Steel's research explores the intersections of Islamic law and intellectual history in Africa.    It situates the recent history of the Mālikī school in late colonial Sudan within broader transformations of law and authority occurring throughout much of the early modern Islamic World. He received his undergraduate degree at Swarthmore College and Master’s degree at Dartmouth College, earning the outstanding graduate thesis of 2012 for his work on customary law in highland Yemen.  He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Guinea, Sudan, where he served as a visiting fellow at the University of Khartoum’s Department of Islamic Studies (2014-2016), and in Mauritania, where he was named research fellow at the Institut Mauritanien de Recherches Scientifiques (IMRS) (2018-2019).