In Islamic Legal Thought: A Compendium of Muslim Jurists, twenty-three scholars each contribute a chapter on a distinguished Muslim jurist. The volume is organized chronologically and it includes jurists who represent the formative, classical and modern periods of Islamic legal thought. Each chapter contains both a biography of an individual jurist and a translated sample of his work. The biographies emphasize the scholarly milieu in which the jurist worked-his teachers, colleagues and pupils, as well as the type of juridical thinking for which he is best known. The translated sample highlights the contribution of each jurist to the evolution of both the method and the methodology of Islamic jurisprudence. The introduction by the volume's three editors, Oussama Arabi, David S. Powers and Susan A. Spectorsky, provides a concise overview of the contents. Contributors include: Oussama Arabi, Murteza Bedir, Jonathan E. Brockopp, Robert Gleave, Camilo Gomez-Rivas, Mahmoud O. Haddad, Peter C. Hennigan, Colin Imber, Samir Kaddouri, Aharon Layish, Joseph E. Lowry, Muhammad Khalid Masud, Ebrahim Moosa, David S. Powers, Yossef Rapoport, Delfina Serrano Ruano, Susan A. Spectorsky, Devin J. Stewart, Osman Tastan, Etty Terem, Nurit Tsafrir, Bernard G. Weiss, Hiroyuki Yanagihashi.

Drawing on legal and hadith texts from the formative and classical periods of Islamic legal history, this book offers an overview of the development of the questions prominent jurists asked and answered about women's issues. All assumed a woman would marry and thus the book concentrates on women's family life. The introduction establishes the historical framework within which the jurists worked. A chapter on Qur'an verses devoted to women's lives is followed by chapters on marriage and divorce which compare the views of jurists during the formative period. The fourth chapter describes the evolution from the formative to the classical periods. The fifth uses material from both periods to describe the array of legal opinion about other aspects of women's lives in and outside their homes. Throughout, jurists' opinions are juxtaposed with relevant quotations from contemporaneous hadith collections.

Drawing on legal and hadith texts from the formative and classical periods of Islamic legal history, this book offers an overview of the development of the questions prominent jurists asked and answered about women's issues. All assumed a woman would marry and thus the book concentrates on women's family life. The introduction establishes the historical framework within which the jurists worked. A chapter on Qur'an verses devoted to women's lives is followed by chapters on marriage and divorce which compare the views of jurists during the formative period. The fourth chapter describes the evolution from the formative to the classical periods. The fifth uses material from both periods to describe the array of legal opinion about other aspects of women's lives in and outside their homes. Throughout, jurists' opinions are juxtaposed with relevant quotations from contemporaneous hadith collections.