School
Islamic jurisprudence
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What are the “objectives of the law” (maqāṣid) that people keep mentioning, and why do they matter?
In a discussion at our mosque youth group, one speaker kept saying that a ruling has to be understood "through the maqāṣid", the objectives or purposes of the sharia. Another person said this is exactly how people end up ignoring the texts.…
Started by Fajar Nugroho3 replies -
If consent of the governed is the newcomer, what did legitimacy rest on before it?
My students are learning about government this term. I showed them a comparative table of answers to the question "how should we be governed?" across many traditions: Greek, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, European. The thing that surprised them most was that only the…
Started by Aroha Tipene5 replies -
Is the ban on riba about bad outcomes, or about the form a transaction may take?
Many of my clients in Surrey are Muslim. Several of them won't take a conventional loan. One explained that it's not because the interest rate is too high; it's that a guaranteed return on money lent is wrong in itself, whatever the…
Started by Harpreet Kaur Grewal4 replies -
If nobody deserves punishment, could a court actually run on Pereboom’s quarantine model?
I studied law in Lahore and have never quite stopped reading it. Lately I have been reading Derk Pereboom, who argues that free will in the sense needed for basic desert does not exist, whether determinism is true or not. He does…
Started by Hamza Qureshi5 replies -
When should someone who isn’t an expert simply defer? What did al-Ghazālī say?
As a data analyst I defer to experts all day: to doctors about my health, to engineers about the bridges I drive over, to the people who built the statistical libraries I use. I can't check them. I'd like to understand when…
Started by Nur Aisyah Rahman4 replies -
How does Islamic legal reasoning decide on a financial product that no text mentions?
Our product team at the bank is looking at a "buy now, pay later" service. Inevitably someone asked whether it's halal. Someone else said, a bit dismissively, that the Qur'an and hadith obviously don't mention smartphone instalment apps, so either the scholars…
Started by Nur Aisyah Rahman5 replies -
Why did the rabbis write down the opinions they voted against?
I run a Talmud study group on Tuesday nights, and every year someone new asks the same thing: why does the text keep the losing side? When a law is decided, why preserve, often at length, the arguments of the sages who…
Started by Eliana Halpern7 replies -
Outside a courtroom, who should carry the burden of proof?
In court the burden of proof is fixed by rules. In a criminal case the prosecution must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt; in a civil case the claimant must win on the balance of probabilities. Islamic law has a well-known maxim to…
Started by Hamza Qureshi6 replies -
Accident or intent: how should a court decide what someone actually did?
The cases that kept me awake, in my years reporting from the courts, were not the ones where anyone doubted who struck the blow. They were the ones where we knew exactly what happened physically, and everything depended on what the accused…
Started by Khalid Mahmood Awan4 replies -
Austin says a vow on stage is void. The jurists said some words bind even in jest. Who is right?
This one comes from the courtroom. Since retiring I have been reading Austin, and one of his remarks keeps returning me to my old law books. Austin says a performative is "hollow" when said by an actor on a stage or as…
Started by Khalid Mahmood Awan4 replies