Sharia Texts

This seminar aims to introduce graduate students to the major subfields making up the Sharīʿa system, both in its theoretical as well as practical and institutional manifestations. We will be dissecting representative texts from each genre, all in the Arabic original, ranging from works on the psychoepistemic foundations of the law, to legal theory, the judiciary and juridico-political practice, legal education, biographical constructions of authority, and economic and political management by the Sharīʿa. Theoretically, we will be drawing on historical and cultural anthropology, political theory, Critical Theory, the theories of the subject, and constitutional studies, among others. A reasonable success in this course will permit the student to comfortably specialize in any Sharīʿa subfield.