Baber Johansen

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Copyright © Baber Johansen 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocpying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Levtzion Center and the author The Nehemia Levtzion Center for Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem expressess it gratitude to the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute for hosting the Third Annual Levtzion Lecture (delivered 19 March 2007)
Abstract This paper attempts to analyze the relation between law and theology in Islam. It focuses on the acts of worship that constitute a sphere of transcendence, clearly distinguished from legal and social transactions between humans. In this sphere of transcendence believers find a model for embodied normative behavior meant to bring them closer to God. But coming closer to God is not just the function of the cult; it also serves as a model for social and legal behavior. It thus links the cult to the world of inter-human relations. The cult and the links to God that it establishes are integrated into a legal, not a theological framework. The author tries to render this fact comprehensible through references to major Muslims theologians and jurists of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries who systematically explain the relation between Islamic jurisprudence and theology as a division of labor between a rational reconstruction of God’s creation and a revelation-based legal norm derivation. The theoretical framework of this paper is provided by the reflection on the tension between contingent and non-contingent actors and norms. Baber Johansen is Professor for Islamic Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School. Before coming to Harvard he taught as professor for Islamic Studies in the Freie Universitaet Berlin and as Directeur d’études at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His main research interest is the history and the present of Islamic law. His most important publications are: Contingency in a Sacred Law: Legal and Ethical Norms in the Muslim Fiqh (Brill, 1999); The Islamic Law on Land Tax and Rent. The Peasants’ Loss of Property Rights as Interpreted in the Hanafite Legal Literature of the Mamluk and Ottoman Periods (Croom Helm, 1988); Islam und Staat. Abhängige Entwicklung, Verwaltung des Elends und religiöser Anti-Imperialismus (Das Argument, 1982); Muhammad Husain Haikal. Europa und der Orient im Weltbild eines ägyptischen Liberalen (Steiner, 1967 ; Arabic translation: Kalima, 2010). He co-edited, with D.J. Stewart and A. Singer, Law and Society in Islam (Markus Wiener Publisher, 1997); and with A. Havemann, Gegenwart als Geschichte. Islamwissenschaftliche. Studien. Fritz Steppat zum fünfund-sechzigsten Geburtstag (Brill, 1988). With David Powers and Aharon Layish he served as editor of Islamic Law and Society (1994-2012).
Page 1: The Changing Limits of Contingency
Page 6 and 7: 2 determined the universe so as to
Page 8 and 9: 4 allowed the theologians to define
Page 10 and 11: 6 military slaves of their guards;
Page 12 and 13: 8 Secondly, the impersonal characte
Page 14 and 15: 10 consequences in both acts of wor
Page 16 and 17: 12 1990s. The difference between th
Page 18 and 19: 14 Al-BÁjÐ (1012-1081), a MÁlik
Page 20 and 21: 16 This dissent does not diminish t
Page 22 and 23: 18 In other words, human beings hav
Page 24 and 25: 20 common ground for social moralit
Page 26 and 27: 22 most of them are acts of charity
Page 28 and 29: 24 It is not hidden to anyone that
Page 30 and 31: 26 The rational reconstruction of t
Page 32 and 33: 28 between the contingent world and
Page 34 and 35: 30 Ibn ÝAqÐl answers this claim o
Page 36 and 37: 32 law books do not have the same d
Page 38 and 39: 34 falls mentally ill after having
Page 40 and 41: 36 irrational actor accumulated cul
Page 42 and 43: 38 God. The actor’s contingent de
Page 44 and 45: 40 use their legal reasoning (ijtih
Page 46 and 47: 42 underline the contingency of the
Page 48 and 49: 44 Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Page 50 and 51: 46 both," p. 475, no 1319. In other
Page 52 and 53:
48 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
Page 54 and 55:
50 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 SarakhsÐ,
Page 56:
The Nehemia Levtzion Center for Isl
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Baber Johansen

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