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21 Islamic L. & Soc'y 209 (2014)
An Epistemic Shift in Islamic Law

handle is hein.journals/islamls21 and id is 217 raw text is: ISLAMIC LAW AND SOCIETY 21 (2014) 209-251 Islamic Law and Society BRILL brill.com/ils An Epistemic Shift in Islamic Law Educational Reform at al-Azhar and Ddr al-Vim Aria Nakissa University of Winnipeg arianakissa@gmailcom Abstract In this article, I combine textual research with ethnographic data collected at al-Azhar and Dir al-'Ulim to investigate how the modernization of traditional religious learning has transformed the character of Islamic legal doctrine. I argue that changes in educa- tional techniques have produced a shift in episteme. Whereas traditional religious learning was dominated by language-based conceptions of knowledge, modern reforms have reoriented education towards new conceptions modeled on the natural sciences. This transformation has fundamentally altered patterns of legal reasoning, particularly with respect to ijtihdd and taqlid. I use these observations to urge a rethinking of the perspectives on ytihdd and taqld that currently structure Western research on Islamic legal history. Keywords Islamic law - ytihad - taqlid - Egypt - al-Azhar - education - modernization - episteme * The author wishes to thank Asad Ahmed, Talal Asad, Steven Caton, Carl Sharif El-Tobgui, BaberJohansen, Brinkley Messick, Ahmed Ragab, Kirsten Wesselhoeft, and Malika Zeghal for their comments on earlier versions of this article; Fulbright and Brandeis University's Crown Center for their generous financial support; and David Powers for his tireless and invaluable assistance in improving the manuscript. @ KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2014 DOI 10.1163/15685195-00213PO2

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