SHARIAsource

Egypt’s Dar al-Iftā (Fatwa Council) issued a fatwā regarding the permissibility of cosmetic surgery to reduce nose size in instances where the size of the nose is causing physical and psychological harm. The Dar al-Ifta stated that, while plastic surgery simply for cosmetological purposes is impermissible, it becomes permissible if the purpose of the procedure is to rectify some harm, either physical or psychological, which is causing instability in one’s life.

University of Toronto

Suyūṭī’s (d. 911/1505) al-Ashbāh wa-l-Naẓāʾir is a treatise collecting Shāfiʿī legal canons. It examines the similarities and differences between legal and interpretive outcomes in Islamic law in ways that show how and why one judgment or outcome is distinguished from another, and in the process highlights the substantive and interpretive legal canons that guide those legal outcomes. 

For more, view the full print edition and see The Legal Thought of Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti: Authority and Legacy (Oxford, 2017) by Rebecca Hernandez.

This excerpt is from Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-ʿAlāʾī's (d. 761/1359) al-Majmūʿ al-Mudhhab fī Qawāʿid al-Madhhab, which is a two-volume collection of substantive legal canons and interpretive legal canons, and the third-oldest known Shāfiʿī canons collection from the Mamlūk era. Substantive legal canons (qawāʿid fiqhiyya) are short formulas expressing fundamental principles and doctrines of Islamic law, while interpretive legal canons (qawāʿid uṣūliyya) are principles for interpreting textual sources. This excerpt provides the first few pages excerpted from the author's Introduction. 

For more, view the full print edition and read the commentary by Mariam Sheibani on the Islamic Law Blog.

This is the first volume of al-Timurtāshī's commentary of his compendium of Ḥanafī law, Tanwīr al-Abṣār wa-Jāmiʻ al-Biḥār.

In its judgment dated December 15, 2023, a majority of the Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld various provisions of the Supreme Court Act of 2023 as constitutional. The majority rejected arguments that the Act sought to interfere with the Court's independence and exclusive jurisdiction over its own affairs and internal organization. Certain provisions of the Act constrain the power of the Chief Justice and provide certain guarantees that some cases need to be heard by a committee of justices as opposed to a single justice or only a few of them. Most importantly, the Court, in upholding the Act, rejected the Chief Justice's power as the so-called "Master of the Roster." Previously, under that power, the Chief Justice had the ability to constitute benches, that is, appoint individual justices of his choosing, who then heard specific cases. Rejecting that power, the Court ruled that the "Master of the Roster" power was alien to the Constitution of Pakistan. Further, the Court noted that the word "master" was offensive and un-Islamic, writing that "Islam establishes the principle of equality . . . ."

At a meeting in Lucknow on February 5, 2023, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) passed a resolution opposing the Indian government’s proposed Uniform Civil Code. The Board noted that the proposed UCC was “neither relevant nor beneficial for a multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual country like India.” The Board further expressed concerns that the UCC would divide India along religious and cultural lines, and that it would erode safeguards around religious freedom and equality.

In the Introduction to Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law, Hossein Modarressi introduces the topic of his study: the early development of the Jaʿfarī Islamic legal school. Modarressi notes that the Jaʿfarī school emerged in the late Umayyad period (i.e., the first half of the second Islamic century/mid-eighth century CE) and its eponym was Imam Abū ʿAbd Allāh Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), a preeminent jurist of Medina and a revered member of the House of the Prophet (ahl al-bayt). Over the course of the Introduction, Modarressi draws on various sources to show how Imam al-Ṣādiq was revered by many as a leading jurist during his time. Modarressi notes that his project utilizes “all material that corresponds to the language and character of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, as known through both historical and biographical accounts, and as such can reasonably be deemed reliable,” without regard to sectarian tendencies and doctrinal affiliations (p. 11).

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This fatwa acknowledges the principal distinctions between Sunni and Shi'a Islam:

1. Shi'a Islam rejects hadith not narrated by the Prophet's family (Ahlu Bait), while Sunni Islam (Ahlu Sunnah wal Jama'ah) does not differentiate between hadith provided that those hadith meet the criteria of the classification of hadith (mustalah hadis);
2. Shi'a Islam perceives imams as infallible (ma 'sum), while Sunni Islam does not;
3. Shi'a Islam does not acknowledge consensus (ijma') without the presence of an imam, while Sunni Islam does;
4. Shi'a Islam believes that political leadership/government is included in the pillars of religion, while Sunni Islam believes in general welfare with the aim of religious, spiritual, political leadership being to guarantee and protect the proselytisation and interests of the Islamic people (umat); and
5. Shi'a Islam, in general, does not acknowledge the succession of Abu Bakar as-Siddiq, Umar Ibnul Khatab, and Usman bin Affan, while Sunni Islam does.

Acknowledging these principal differences, especially with regard to government (imamah), the Indonesian Council of Ulama implores Indonesian Muslims to understand Sunni Islam in order to increase their own vigilence towards the flow of interpretations based on Shi'a Islam.

This entry provides a definition and analysis of the term ijtihād, drawing on works by SHARIAsource Senior Scholar Sherman A. Jackson, King Faisal Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture and Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

Sherman A. Jackson, Legal Scaffolding and the Scope of Legal Injunctions in Post-Formative Theory: Muṭlaq and ʿĀmm in the Jurisprudence of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī, Islamic Law and Society 3, no. 2 (1996): 165–92.

*Note: All page numbers used as citations refer to the above article.

Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law examines the main characteristics of the legal thought of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, a preeminent religious scholar jurist of Medina in the first half of the second century of the Muslim calendar (mid-eighth century CE). Numerous works in different languages have appeared over the past half century to introduce this school of Islamic law and its history, legal theory, and substance in contexts of Shīʿī law.

While previous literature has focused on the current status of the school in its developed and expanded form, this book presents an intellectual history of how the school began. The Jaʿfarī school emerged within the general legal discourse of the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, but was known to differ in certain approaches from the other main legal schools of this time. Namely, the Jaʿfarī school expanded the tools for legal interpretation generally and contracts specifically, to a degree unmatched by any of its counterparts in the Muslim legal tradition. In addition to sketching the origins of the school, the book examines Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s interpretive approach through detailing his position on a number of specific questions, as well as the legal canons, presumptions, and other interpretive tools he adopted.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

The Western Cape High Court in Cape Town declared the 1953 Wills Act inconsistent with the South Africa Constitution, because the statute’s provisions were previously interpreted to recognize only legal marriage and not Muslim marriages.

This is a reference to an example of some of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's senior disciples holding their own legal views and interpretations, such as Zurāra b. Aʿyan. Hossein Modarressi cites this reference in his discussion of some of the features of al-Ṣādiq's circle of disciples.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This Constitutional Court review of Law No. 1 of 1965 on the Prevention of Abuse and/or Defamation of Religion concluded that while a person’s religious beliefs are part of their inner freedom of religion (forum internum), for the sake of peace and social order, when stated publicly, those interpretations must accord with the basic tenets of that religion, and the scriptures of that religion. It is in these cases that restrictions on religious interpretation may be enforced.

Fatwā concerning the legality, based on their interpretation of Islamic law, of fulfilling the Friday prayer (Jumuʿa) at home, instead of at a mosque (masjid) or public prayer venue. The answer provided by the Mufti of Australia and The Australian Fatwa Council, dated 18 March 2020, is that their interpretation of Islamic law permits for a Muslim, in the event of a pandemic that threatens one’s life, such as COVID-19, which is spread through close social interaction, to not have to attend the daily congregational prayers and Friday prayer.

This statute ratifies the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, assented to by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 18 December 1979, with a reservation in regards to art 29(1) of the Convention, which covers dispute resolution between states-parties concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention.

This fatwa obliges Muslims to understand the problem of gender in accordance with Islamic teachings. It mandates the Indonesian Council of Ulama Leadership Council to immediately formulate Islamic teachings that relate to gender problems to prevent the emergence of a biased view of the problem. It also obliges ulama to conduct assessments of gender problems pursuant to honest interpretations.

Summary for a case in which the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town declared the 1953 Wills Act inconsistent with the South Africa Constitution, because the statute’s provisions were previously interpreted to recognize only legal marriage and not Muslim marriages.

This is a reference to how Mālik b. Anas (the eponym of the Mālikī school of law) remembered Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq: exceptional in his manners and religious devotion.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).

This is a reference to how Mālik b. Anas (the eponym of the Mālikī school of law) remembered Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq: exceptional in his manners and religious devotion.

This source is part of the Online Companion to Hossein Modarressi, Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law (Harvard University Press, 2022).