Interpretation and Jurisprudence in Medieval Islam

At the time of his death in 1998, at the age of 47, Norman Calder had become the most widely-discussed scholar in his field. This was largely focused on his monograph, Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1993), which boldly challenged existing theories about the origins of Islamic Law. The present volume of twenty-one of his articles and book chapters represents the full richness and diversity of Calder's oeuvre, from his initial doctoral research on Shii Islam to his later more philosophical writings on Sunni hermeneutics, in addition to his numerous studies on early Islamic history and jurisprudence. Calder's pioneering research, which was based on a sensitive reading of medieval texts fully informed by contemporary critical theory, often challenged the established assumptions of the day. He is known in particular for urging a reassessment of widely-held prejudices which underestimated the degree of creativity in medieval Islamic scholarship. Many of the articles in this volume have already become classics for the fields of Muslim jurisprudence and hermeneutics.

About the Author

Norman Calder, who died in 1998 at the age of 47, was one of the leading scholars in the study of Islamic jurisprudence and hermeneutics. At the time of his retirement, he was Senior Lecturer in Arabic in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Manchester, UK. Jawid Mojaddedi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA. Andrew Rippin is Dean in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Victoria, Canada.