Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewsDisagreements of the Jurists: A Manual of Islamic Legal Theory. By Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān. Edited and translated by Devin J. Stewart. New York: New York University Press, 2015. Pp. xxxviii + 408. $40 (cloth).Rodrigo AdemRodrigo AdemUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThose well-acquainted with early Ismāʿīlism can observe that it was distinguished by two dynamic and concomitant features: the prominent role which zealous converts took in shaping its doctrinal development on the one hand, and its ability to practice one-upmanship in every aspect of Islamic thought on the other. Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. ad 974), a convert to the daʿwa from an originally Sunnī scholarly family during the rise of the Fatimid dawla in north Africa, clearly found that his passion lay in the law, and his Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib, translated into English for the first time by Devin Stewart, bears witness to his monumental efforts in establishing the classical bases of Fatimid judicial authority.The Library of Arabic Literature’s decision to publish this text after previous editions by S. T. Lokhandwalla (Simla, 1972) and Mustafa Ghalib (Beirut, 1973, 1983), now in a format accessible to readers of English, poses the question anew of how we are to assess the Qadi’s scholarly legacy. It has been proposed that, from the perspective of the daʿwa’s early history, his legal codification project for the Fatimids fulfilled two primary functions: first, a means of neutralizing the liability of chiliastic antinomianism so central to the early spread of the movement, and second, a means of consolidating a viable nomocratic order for the Fatimid dawla’s ambitiously growing empire.1 Such assessments, however, are based primarily on an appraisal of the Daʿāʾim al-Islām and other works dedicated to the details of Islamic positive law; the Ikhtilāf, in contrast, dedicated to matters of jurisprudential theory, has received comparatively less attention.Stewart takes a different approach, putting the Ikhtilāf in conversation with the influential studies of George Makdisi and Christopher Melchert on Sunnī madhhab formation. He explains its composition as a response to the “pressure” of Sunnī domination that created the “necessity for legal schools to have a manual of uṣūl al-fiqh” or “legal hermeneutics;” as such, the Ikhtilāf falls within al-Nuʿmān’s “overall project … to establish Ismāʿīlī law on a par with the legal schools of the Sunnis.”2 Accordingly, Stewart’s analysis presupposes the social normativity of the Sunnī madhhab and a specific function accorded to uṣūl al-fiqh for its discursive normalization, on the basis of which the Ikhtilāf pursues a foothold for a minority Shīʿite discourse in Islamic jurisprudence.3However, this characterization of the Ikhtilāf has the inadvertent effect of attenuating the specifically Shīʿite premises informing the work. Far from a juristic manual or treatise on hermeneutics, the Ikhtilāf is intended as a polemic against the very tenability of those endeavors, and precisely on account of the centrality of the Shīʿite imamate in its Fatimid iteration.4 Such polemics, as is known, find their origin in a classical topos of Imāmī ḥadīth arguing for the scriptural basis of the imam’s absolute jurisdiction, and warning against raʾy and qiyās as an affront to the revelatory authority of the imamate. The Ikhtilāf falls squarely within that polemical tradition, as is evident from chapters 1 through 6; its chief novelty consists primarily in being the earliest extant example to move beyond the scripturally inscribed ad hominem argumentation typical of that early polemical form towards an epistemologically attuned critique commensurate in its complexity with subsequent developments in jurisprudential methodology—that is, the concepts and terms of what came to be called uṣūl al-fiqh (forming the subject matter of chapters 7 to 12).Yet the conceptual shift documented by the Ikhtilāf is not simply a refutation of the latest methods “to which the Sunnīs resort.”5 The work’s wholesale rejection of legal hermeneutics likewise went against the grain of an increasing historical trend among other Shīʿites, Twelver Imamīs included. Though a kindred spirit is certainly to be found in the Qadi’s younger contemporary, the influential Twelver scholar Ibn Bābūya, the concurrently incipient (and subsequently normative) uṣūl tradition adopted by the Twelver mutakallimūn of the Baghdad tradition embraced precisely those methods which the Qāḍī declared anathema in the Ikhtilāf (with the notable exception of ijtihād/qiyās). There is a historical reason for this divergence: at its inception, the Fatimid state was attached to the sole Shīʿite sect claiming immediate access to an infallible imam; only such a claim could obviate the need for a (fallible) scholarly interpretive tradition. From this perspective, the Ikhtilāf represents a departure from a growing norm in Islamic legal thought inasmuch as it also represents a holdover of traditional Imami polemic at a time when the Fatimid imamate was uniquely situated to do so.Amplifying these increasingly archaic Imami talking points in light of the epistemological considerations of uṣūl al-fiqh only accentuated the pretheoretical underpinnings of the imam’s religious authority: for this reason the Qadi shored up Fatimid religious authority as based on unmitigated revelation or “Qurʾān and sunna.” Sunna is no less revelatory than the Qurʾān; the Prophet and imams do not have interpretations or opinions of their own.6 The ideal of unmediated religious authority thus forms the basis for critiquing all forms of human subjectivity (knowledge derived from “dhāt [al-]anfus”7) necessarily implicated in an interpretive process by outsider groups.The majority of the critique naturally focuses on ijtihād and qiyās (chapters 9 and 12), treated identically in their function as principles that allow scholars to extend the injunctions of revelatory statements beyond their basic lexical form. The second-most belabored point of criticism is consensus (ijmāʿ, chapter 7), a guarantor of interpretive normativity which likewise extends most conspicuously beyond the confines of scripture. Contentions on these two topics were nothing new in uṣūl; but where the Qadi breaks most clearly with the dominant uṣūl tradition is his explanation of revelation’s authority in terms of its self-sufficiency: “God did not omit anything that worshippers need without providing them an explicit injunction (naṣṣ) concerning it and an explanation regarding it.”8 The degree to which revelation is described as self-sufficient makes it all the more conspicuous that comparatively fewer pages are dedicated to refuting kalām-based epistemology and scriptural hermeneutics, (naẓar, chapter 8 and istidlāl, chapter 11, respectively), the tools by which Muslim scholars most explicity articulated the unavoidable contingencies underlying God’s operative modes of communication. These are, despite their discursive significance, routinely dismissed by the Qadi among other methods due to their underlying subjectivity. Neither revelation’s underlying theological premises nor linguistic character are to be theorized9—rather, the media of God’s command remain willfully unmediated. Even the Qadi’s arguments for the acceptance of sunna break with those of al-Shāfiʿī,10 precisely since the latter explicitly attempted to mediate uncertain or probabilistic knowledge in the sharīʿa in a way that the Qadi was loathe to do.In light of these conceptual breaks with al-Shāfiʿī and indeed all predominant forms of uṣūl, Stewart’s groundbreaking demonstration of the Qadi’s reliance on Ẓāhirī uṣūl argumentation holds all the more significance. 11 The paradoxical adoption of this form of reasoning by a highly esoteric form of Shīʿism not only underscores the necessity of appreciating the ẓāhir’s revamped role in the elaboration of Fatimid ideology;12 by the same token, we are also reminded of the perennial appeal of Ẓāhirī thought in “theorizing” the minimization of Muslim religious subjectivity, in classical and modern times. Ultimately, however, the Ikhtilāf’s revelational maximalism exceeds that of the Ẓāhirīya; in its refusal to endorse any interpretive method whatsoever, Ismāʿīlī substantive law as conceived by the Qadi was destined to be unconditionally exoteric.As rhetorically efficacious as elements of the Qadi’s strategy are, the student of Ismāʿīlism cannot help but detect an incongruity with other prevalent modes of Ismāʿīlī proselytization: elsewhere the daʿwa argued for the indispensability of a rational dimension for sharīʿa to remedy fideist “exotericism,” challenging Muslims to find a rational meaning to all aspects of the law. In contrast, the Qadi here excoriated jurisprudents who made any attempt to interpret the law or find rational coherence in it (see especially his rejection of ḥusn ʿaqlī or “rational sense”13). Nevertheless, a practical synergy can also be found in the de facto catch-22 that emerges: the ẓāhir is only problematized in order to introduce the need for symbolic reinterpretation of the law as a parable of the Shīʿite imamate (cf. the Taʾwīl al-daʿāʾim), but not for scholars to independently develop “legal sciences”—lest that constitute an affront to Ismāʿīlī religious authority. The radical restriction of scholarly agency is resolved here, from an Ismāʿīlī perspective, in that all “rational” knowledge which forms the basis of esoteric truth is nothing other than divine inspiration (taʾyīd) mediated by the imams. As a case in point, we find the Qadi’s contemporary, the prominent Ismāʿīlī and Neoplatonic philosopher Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī juxtaposing the role of pious Fatimid caliphs in properly “establishing God’s religion” (iqāmat dīn Allāh) with the Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn who had seemingly misspent “Muslim wealth” to translate the books of godless Greek philosophy.14 That the well-read philosopher could do so unironically depended on his embrace of Ismāʿīlism’s pretensions to uncompromising traditional purity from a revelatory source, even in the “rational” sciences.The uncompromising emphasis on purity of doctrine, particularly in light of the utilization of “Qurʾān and sunna” as metonym of the same, brings us to another reason why the contextualization of the Ikhtilāf within the history of madhhab formation is inadequate; it also sidesteps the intensely polemical theme of “innovation” (bidʿa), which is a constant refrain of the work. The Qadi repeatedly portrays the entire Muslim umma as guilty of failing to “establish the religion” (iqāmat al-dīn) due to the widespread “innovation” of following fallible religious scholarship. The origin of the resulting fallen state of “polytheism” (shirk), according to the Qadi, is attributable to the diabolical machination of the Umayyads and Abbasids, who, after usurping political authority from the imams, undermined God’s rule by establishing a scholarly class that has justified its use of fallible methodologies ever since. This panoramic vision of “innovation” in the Muslim community expands considerably on a theme found in the introduction to the Daʿāʾim,15 and in the Taʾwīl al-daʿāʾim we also learn that this same contravention justifies jihād against other Muslims who “reject the sharīʿa.”16 While the ḥadīth that states, “Islam began as a stranger,” justified the chiliastic antinomianism a generation earlier at the beginning of the daʿwa,17 for the Qadi, the same narration is utilized in the Ikhtilāf to underscore the role of the Fatimid state as the sole protector of the sharīʿa from human contamination. 18 Fatimid Shīʿism thus being conceived as embodying the sole uncompromised model of an absolutist theocratic order legislated by God, the Ikhtilāf serves as a valuable document for the repurposing of classical Imamite anti-innovation polemic in the service of Fatimid counterclaims against the Sunnī and Abbasid model of religio-political authority.Stewart’s edition is to be highly commended. The Arabic text is generally reliable, and Stewart’s translation is both accurate and eminently readable; the (very few) erroneous readings I believe to have detected are of the minutest significance. There remains just one minor objection to be made about two interrelated terms in translation: the first of these is Stewart’s translation of ijtihād as “legal interpretation.” Although this term would seem a convenient catch-all phrase for the independent interpretation of texts often cited in classical and modern discussions, it seems fairly certain that the author’s usage of it is closer to that of earlier scholars such as Shāfiʿī, al-Jaṣṣāṣ, al-Mufīd, and al-Murtaḍā, in that it essentially refers to qiyās, which is also why it is grouped with raʾy, both referring to the hypothetical prerogative of the scholar to adduce rulings on matters concerning which scripture is silent. The word “interpretation” used here obscures the fact that ijithād is not concerned with the meaning of a particular text (see istidlāl), but rather with what to do in the absence of a text. By the same token, Stewart’s translation of istidlāl as “inference” also has its shortcomings, since istidlāl refers more broadly to the hermeneutic procedures for determining the semantic range of a given text. Perhaps “hermeneutics,” “linguistic analysis,” or even “legal interpretation” would have been more fitting for istidlāl, while ijtihād in turn might more aptly be translated as “ruling-based inference.” Notes 1. See Heinz Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi, trans. Michael Bonner (Leiden, 1996), 370–74; Michael Brett, The Rise of the Fatimids (Leiden, 2001), 186–95.2. Ikhtilāf, introduction, xx–xxiii.3. Ikhtilāf, introduction, xiv, xvi.4. The interested reader would be well advised to consult the following article, an unfortunate omission from Stewart’s bibliography: Husain K. B. Qutbuddin, “Fāṭimid Legal Exegesis of the Qur’an: The Interpretive Strategies Used by al-Qāḍī Al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974) in His Daʿāʾim Al-Islām,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 12 (2010): 109–46.5. See Ikhtilāf, introduction, xxiv.6. Contra to what Stewart’s expressions might otherwise suggest (cf. Ikhtilāf, introduction, xix, xxvii). Whether or not prophetic injunctions were strictly considered revelation (as opposed to ijtihād) was a subject of uṣūl as far back as al-Shāfiʿī.7. Ikhtilāf, 268–69.8. Ikhtilāf, 312–13.9. The assumption of apathy or agreement on “linguistic principles” (Ikhtilāf, introduction, xxvii–xxviii) in Stewart’s work is inadequate. Cf. Qutbuddin above.10. Contra Stewart; see Ikhtilāf, introduction, xvii.11. See Ikhtilāf, introduction, xxv–xxvi.12. Sumaiya A. Hamdani, Between Revolution and State: The Path to Fatimid Statehood (New York, 2007).13. Ikhtilāf, 274–81.14. Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī, Kitāb al-Iftikhār, ed. Ismail K. Poonawala (Beirut, 2000), 175.15. Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim al-Islām, ed. Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee (Cairo, 1963), 1:1–2.16. Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, Taʾwīl al-Daʿāʾim, ed. Muḥammad Ḥasan al-Aʿẓāmī (Cairo, 1967), 49–52.17. Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī, Firaq alshīʿa, ed. Hellmuth Ritter (Istanbul, 1931), 62–63.18. Cf. similar observations by Wilferd Madelung, “Das Imamat in der frühen ismailistischen Lehre,” Der Islam 37 (1961): 83–84. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 76, Number 1April 2017 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/690770 © 2017 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse a book review in this section, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.