This book brings together studies by experts in the study of religion in nineteenth century Iran. Broad areas covered include the relationship between religion and the state, the importance of archival materials for the study of religion, the developments in Qajar religious thought, the position of religious minorities in Qajar Iran and the relationship between religion and Qajar culture. The centrality of Shi'ite Islam to any understanding of Qajar religion is emphasised, though non-Muslim religious communities, and their relationship with the Shi'ite hierarchy and the state are also studied. For the first time, a collection of studies by the leading researchers in the field are collected in one place. The collection represents the proceedings of a conference in September 2000 at the University of Bristol.

This book brings together studies by experts in the study of religion in nineteenth century Iran. Broad areas covered include the relationship between religion and the state, the importance of archival materials for the study of religion, the developments in Qajar religious thought, the position of religious minorities in Qajar Iran and the relationship between religion and Qajar culture. The centrality of Shi'ite Islam to any understanding of Qajar religion is emphasised, though non-Muslim religious communities, and their relationship with the Shi'ite hierarchy and the state are also studied. For the first time, a collection of studies by the leading researchers in the field are collected in one place. The collection represents the proceedings of a conference in September 2000 at the University of Bristol.

The Gibb Memorial Trust, founded at the start of the 20th century, comprised among its trustees some of the most celebrated and prominent orientalists of their day. Together, they sponsored and supported research on editing and translating Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts on a range of subjects, from history, literature, geography and poetry to Sufism and the Islamic sciences. This volume covers the development of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies over the last 120 years or so, as seen through the biographies of the leading scholars of the period. It opens with a short history of the Trust, before presenting a series of short biographical and often personal appreciations of these eminent Middle Eastern scholars of the past, written by existing trustees. In providing a history of this important institution, the book shines a light on the history and development of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in Britain more broadly.

Muslim attitudes toward violence have been reshaped in light of the colonial context since the 18th and 19th centuries, and in response to regional and world-changing events of the contemporary period. This volume shows the diversity of approaches to violence in Islamic thought, avoiding the limiting characterisations of Islam being inherently'violent' or 'peaceful'.It shows how ideas of 'justified violence' grounded in Islamic theological and juristic traditions re-occur throughout history, up to the contemporary period. Chapters on earlier events provide context for contemporary debates on violence, showing how traditional legal and theological ideas (such as the sovereignty of God's law and peace treaties) are used to both legitimise and de-legitimise violence.This is the final volume in the Violence in Islamic Thought trilogy. Taken together the 3 books cover key aspects of violence in Islamic thought from the earliest time to the present day, mapping a trajectory of thinking about violence over fourteen centuries of Islamic history.

This volume shows the diversity of approaches to violence in Islamic thought between the 19th century and the present day, avoiding the limiting characterisations of Islam being inherently 'violent' or 'peaceful'. It shows how ideas of 'justified violence' - grounded in Islamic theological and juristic traditions - reoccur throughout history, up to the contemporary period. Chapters on earlier events provide context for contemporary debates on violence, showing how traditional legal and theological ideas (such as the sovereignty of God's law and peace treaties) are used to both legitimise and de-legitimise violence.

One of the characteristics of the 'conservative religious revival' movements in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is the commitment to a scriptural text as the sole source of knowledge, and an insistence on the literal interpretation of this text. However little has been to done to investigate this phenomenon of interpretation which proposes the literal meaning as the only acceptable one. This book fills this gap with respect to Islam, looking both at literal meaning and literalism. The focus is on the tradition of Muslim legal writings: in this literature there exists a complex procedure of how to identify the literal meaning and the role it has in interpreting texts. The author also makes reference to Quranic exegesis (tafsir) and Arabic rhetorical works, since many of the ideas of legal hermeneutics were derived from these cognate traditions of learning. The overall aim is to take an important modern phenomenon (Muslim commitment to the literal meaning of the revelatory texts) and place it in an historical context. The Muslim debates analysed in the book are described through the prism of modern Western linguistic philosophy, and a chronology of the development of Muslim conceptions of literal meaning structures the book.

The violent conquest of the eastern part of the lands under Muslim rule by the Mongols marked a new period in the history of Islamic civilisation and in attitudes towards violence. This volume examines the various intellectual and cultural reactions of Muslim thinkers to these events, both within and without the territories subjected to Mongol control. Each chapter examines how violent acts were assessed by Muslim intellectuals, analysing both changes and continuity within Islamic thought over time. Each chapter is structured around a case study in which violent acts are justified or condemned, revealing the variety of attitudes to violence in the medieval period. They are framed by a detailed introduction, focusing on theoretical perspectives on violence and religion and their application, or otherwise, to medieval Islam.

This book traces the emergence and development of the idea of literal meaning in Islamic legal hermeneutics. Literal meaning is what a text means in itself, regardless of what its author intends to convey or the reader understands to be its message. As Islamic law is based on the central texts of Islam, the idea of a literal meaning that rules over human attempts to understand God's message has resulted in a series of debates amongst modern Muslim legal theorists. In this reading of Islamic legal hermeneutics, Robert Gleave explores various competing notions of literal meaning, linked to both theological doctrine and historical developments, together with insights from modern semantic and pragmatic philosophers. It focuses on Islamic legal writings, with reference to Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) and Arabic rhetorical works. It describes Muslim debates through the lens of modern Western linguistic philosophy, opening the topic up for Western scholars.

The diverse studies presented in this volume recount the production, understanding and organisation of Muslim literature, both in the Muslim world and Western Europe. First, there are bio-bibliographical studies of Middle Eastern and Muslim literature, in which contributors examine texts and their interrelations in a series of discrete studies, demonstrating how bio-bibliography is reliant on the resources devised and maintained by librarians. Recurrent themes include the vexed question of "authorship"; extant books, tracts or reports are attributed to particular authors, but their content, at times, seems to indicate an alternative author. In the second section, the focus is on the advancement of the study of this literary heritage outside of the Muslim world, primarily in Western Europe. These studies describe the processes and individuals within the development of the western study of the Islamicate world and reflect some of the interests of Paul Auchterlonie, to whom the volume is dedicated.

This classic study deals with the theory and practice of Islamic law in both the formative classic and modern periods and over a range of societies. It is divided into four sections dealing with legal theory; fatwas and muftis in classical Islamic law; the position of religious minorities under Islamic law, and modern developments in Islamic law. The book explores the concept of Ijtihad, or juristic disgression--the process through which a jurist apprehends God's law and can turn it into a legal ruling--and how this has influenced the formulations of law in both Sunni and Shi'i Islam. The subject is viewed from an historical as well as a theoretical angle.

The violent conquest of the eastern part of the lands under Muslim rule by the Mongols marked a new period in the history of Islamic civilisation and in attitudes towards violence. This volume examines the various intellectual and cultural reactions of Muslim thinkers to these events, both within and without the territories subjected to Mongol control. Each chapter examines how violent acts were assessed by Muslim intellectuals, analysing both changes and continuity within Islamic thought over time. Each chapter is structured around a case study in which violent acts are justified or condemned, revealing the variety of attitudes to violence in the medieval period. They are framed by a detailed introduction, focusing on theoretical perspectives on violence and religion and their application, or otherwise, to medieval Islam.

Ten years after his untimely death, Norman Calder is still considered a luminary in the field of Islamic law. At the time he was one among a handful of scholars from the West who were beginning to engage with the subject. In the intervening years, much has changed, and Islamic law is now understood as fundamental to any engagement with the study of Islam, its history, and its society, and Dr. Calder s work is integral to that engagement. In this book, Colin Imber has put together and edited four essays by Norman Calder that have never been previously published. Typically incisive, they categorize and analyze the different genres of Islamic juristic literature that was produced between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, showing what function they served both in the preservation of Muslim legal and religious traditions and in the day-to-day lives of their communities. The essays also examine the status and role of the jurists themselves and are to be particularly welcomed for giving clear answers to the controversial questions of how far Islamic law and juristic thinking changed over the centuries, and how far it was able to adapt to new circumstances. In his introduction to the volume, Robert Gleave assesses the place and importance of Norman Calder s work in the field of Islamic legal studies. This is a groundbreaking book from one of the most important scholars of his generation."

Ten years after his untimely death, Norman Calder is still considered a luminary in the field of Islamic law. At the time he was one among a handful of scholars from the West who were beginning to engage with the subject. In the intervening years, much has changed, and Islamic law is now understood as fundamental to any engagement with the study of Islam, its history, and its society, and Dr. Calder s work is integral to that engagement. In this book, Colin Imber has put together and edited four essays by Norman Calder that have never been previously published. Typically incisive, they categorize and analyze the different genres of Islamic juristic literature that was produced between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, showing what function they served both in the preservation of Muslim legal and religious traditions and in the day-to-day lives of their communities. The essays also examine the status and role of the jurists themselves and are to be particularly welcomed for giving clear answers to the controversial questions of how far Islamic law and juristic thinking changed over the centuries, and how far it was able to adapt to new circumstances. In his introduction to the volume, Robert Gleave assesses the place and importance of Norman Calder s work in the field of Islamic legal studies. This is a groundbreaking book from one of the most important scholars of his generation."

How was violence justified in early Islam? What role did violent actions play in the formation and maintenance of the Muslim political order? How did Muslim thinkers view the origins and acceptability of violence? These questions are addressed by an international range of eminent authors through both general accounts of types of violence and detailed case studies of violent acts drawn from the early Islamic sources. Violence is understood, widely, to include jiha d, state repressions and rebellions, and also more personally directed violence against victims (women, animals, children, slaves) and criminals. By understanding the early development of Muslim thinking around violence, our comprehension of subsequent trends in Islamic thought, during the medieval period and up to the modern day, become clearer.