Transformations of Tradition : Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity

This book is a study of the Muslim world’s entanglement with colonial modernity. More specifically, it is an historical examination of the development of the long-standing, indigenous tradition of learning and praxis known as Islamic law (shariʿa, fiqh) as a result of its imbalanced interaction with new European modes of knowing during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the colonial experience. Drawing upon the writings of jurist-scholars from the Ḥanafī school of law writing in Cairo, Kazan, Lucknow, Baghdad, and Istanbul, Transformations of Tradition reveals several central shifts in Islamic legal writing that throw into doubt the possibility of reading its later trajectory through the lens of a continuous “tradition.” By focusing especially on the work of Muḥammad Bakhīt al-Muṭīʿī, Mufti of Egypt for a time and a leading scholar at the Azhar, Transformations of Tradition shows that the colonial moment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a significant rupture in how Muslim jurists understood history and authority, science and technology, and religion and the secular, thereby upending the very ground upon which Islamic law had until then functioned. Transformations of Tradition probes how the encounter with colonial modernity conditioned Islamic jurists' conceptualizations of the shari'a. Departing from the tendency to focus on reformist-minded thinkers and politically charged issues, Junaid Quadri directs his attention towards the overlooked jurisprudential writings of Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti-i (1854-1935), Mufti of Egypt and a frequent critic of the famed reformists Muhammad 'Abduh and Rashid Rida. There, he locates a remarkable series of foundational intellectual shifts. Offering a fresh perspective on a pivotal period in the history of Islamic thought, Quadri tracks how Bakhit reworks the relationship of the shari'a to categories of understanding as fundamental as history and authority, science and technology, and religion and the secular, thereby upending the very ground upon which Islamic law had until then functioned. Through close readings of complex legal texts and mining of oft-neglected archives, this carefully researched study situates its argument in both the contested scholarly world of a quickly-changing Cairo, and the transregional school of Hanafi law as represented by jurists writing in Kazan, Lucknow, and Baghdad. Examining Islamic jurisprudential discourse in the colonial moment, Transformations of Tradition uncovers a shari'a that is neither a medieval holdover nor merely a pragmatic concession to the demands of a new world, but rather deeply entangled with the epistemological commitments of colonial modernity. "This book is a study of the Muslim world's entanglement with colonial modernity. More specifically, it is an historical examination of the development of the long-standing, indigenous tradition of learning and praxis known as Islamic law (shariʻa, fiqh) as a result of its imbalanced interaction with new European modes of knowing during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the colonial experience. Drawing upon the writings of jurist-scholars from the Ḥanaf īschool of law writing in Cairo, Kazan, Lucknow, Baghdad and Istanbul, Transformations of Tradition reveals several central shifts in Islamic legal writing that throw into doubt the possibility of reading its later trajectory through the lens of a continuous "tradition." By focusing especially on the work of Muḥammad Bakhīt al-Muṭīʻī, Mufti of Egypt for a time and a leading scholar at the Azhar, Transformations shows that the colonial moment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a significant rupture in how Muslim jurists understood history and authority, science and technology, and religion and the secular, thereby upending the very ground upon which Islamic law had until then functioned"-- Provided by publisher This text is a study of the Muslim world's entanglement with colonial modernity. More specifically, it is an historical examination of the development of the long-standing, indigenous tradition of learning and praxis known as Islamic law (sharia, fiqh) as a result of its imbalanced interaction with new European modes of knowing during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the colonial experience. Drawing upon the writings of jurist-scholars from the anaf school of law writing in Cairo, Kazan, Lucknow, Baghdad, and Istanbul, 'Transformations of Tradition' reveals several central shifts in Islamic legal writing that throw into doubt the possibility of reading its later trajectory through the lens of a continuous 'tradition.' Transformations of Tradition probes how the encounter with colonial modernity conditioned Islamic jurists' conceptualizations of the shari'a. Focusing on the jurisprudential writings of Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti-i (1854-1935), Mufti of Egypt for a time, Junaid Quadri locates a remarkable series of foundational intellectual shifts that throw into doubt the possibility of reading the modern trajectory of Islamic law through the lens of a continuous tradition. Through close readings of complex legal texts and mining archives oft-neglected in the field, this carefully researched study uncovers a sha Cover 1 Transformations of Tradition 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 A Note on Transliteration 14 Introduction 16 1. Partisanship, Territorialism, and Transregional Networks of Belonging 52 2. Authority, Ijtihād, and Temporality 74 3. Colonialism, Translation, and Seduction 116 4. Science, Perception, and Objectivity 148 5. Religion, the Secular, and Language 180 Conclusion 224 Bibliography 236 Index 252