Wael B. Hallaq is Professor of Islamic Law in the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Canada

• Contents: General editor's preface; Introduction; The Arab conquests and the formation of Islamic society, I. M. Lapidus; Pre-Islamic background and early development of jurisprudence, Joseph Schacht; Foreign elements in ancient Islamic law, Joseph Schacht; The birth-hour of Muslim law?: an essay in Exegesis, S.D. Goitein; Two legal problems bearing on the early history of the Qur’an, Patricia Crone; Unconditional manumission of slaves in early Islamic law: a hadith analysis, Ulrike Mitter; The role of non-Arab converts in the development of early Islamic law, Harald Motzki; The judiciary (Qadis) as a governmental-administrative tool in early Islam, Irit Abramski-Bligh; Islamic juristic terminology before Safi’i: a semantic analysis with special reference to Kufa, Zafar Ishaq Ansari; Was al-Shafi’i the master architect of Islamic jurisprudence?, Wael Hallaq; Muhammad b. Da’ud al-Zahiri's Manual of Jurisprudence, al-Wusul ila Ma’rifat al-Usul, Devin Stewart; Early Ijtihad and the later construction of authority, Wael Hallaq; The formation of the Sunni schools of law, Christopher Melchert; The Caliphs, the 'Ulama', and the law: defining the role and function of the Caliph in the early ’Abbasid Period, Muhammad Qasim Zaman; Index.

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