M. Mustafa Al-Azami
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By: King Saud University
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
The Definitive Muslim Response to Schacht 2 out of 5 stars.
14 of 23 people found this review helpful.
Unfortunately, Schacht's seminal work on the evolution of fiqh and the growth and fabrication of the hadith literature [ON MUHAMMADAN JURISPRUDENCE] is no longer in print. What is also unfortunate is the inaccessibility of Schacht's text due to the large volume of material that he handles. Moreover, his citations are merely referenced rather than being extensively quoted. Many of his citations are difficult to obtain readily as well since they are comprised of extremely old sources and different versions of those very same sources. Overall, for over 50 years, the theories of Schacht, building on those of Ignaz Goldziher 50 years before him, remain basically irrefutable insofar as key sections of his theories are materially, historically and textually substantiated.al-Azami's book is an incredible resource for two reasons: 1) he quotes in both Arabic and English what Schacht mostly on cites and 2)it is perhaps the most substantial response by a scholar of the Arab Worlds 'ulema' to a piece Western scholarship. Note, this 15 yr. old book has not as of yet been published in Arabic, neither has Schacht's work. Before I left Egypt this year, one of my professors had the manuscript for the Arabic translation [of al-Azami, not Schacht] of this book--meaning that the only Arabic-speaking speaking scholars will only be able to read the polemic, which is unfortunate.
al-Azami goes through Schacht's work in detail, but he just doesn't seem to 'get it'. By 'it', I mean the methodology embodied in Schachts work of critical scholarship. There seems to be a lack of understanding of what compromises evidence and proof. For example, al-Azami consistently uses texts written hundreds of years after the texts and people being discussed. The problematic of the hadith is never grasped fully. [to give everyone an idea, the hadith where not committed to writing until 200 yrs. after the fact ... like if we had just started to produce historical records of the American revolution today]. Nevertheless, al-Azami remains a scholar worth reading, although if one is interested in a radically revised and much better approach to hadith, one would be best helped examining the works of H. Motzki.
Schacht's work is controversial to Muslims because as al-Azami states, there is a fear that he is trying to destroy the basis of their culture and civilization. The contrary is actually the truth. Schacht was a scholar that actually highly valued the system and genius of the Islamic tradition of law; however, he viewed this tradition as a HUMAN tradition. Schacht's criticisms of the origins of Islamic Law proving that it is neither prophetic nor divine but simply human does not destroy a civilization or tradition but opens it up to revision and modernized based on reason rather than religious fanaticism. And, indeed, this is the modus operandi of the original modernist reform movements in the 19th century Mid East.
Editorial Review:
This in-depth study presents a detailed analysis and critique of the classic Western work on the origins of Islamic law, Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Azami's work examines the sources used by Schacht to develop his thesis on the relation of Islamic law to the Qur'an, and exposes fundamental flaws in Schacht's methodology that led to the conclusions unsupported by the texts examined. This book is an important contribution to Islamic legal studies from an Islamic perspective.
