Gavin N Picken
Dr. Gavin Picken is Professor of Islamic Studies and Program Coordinator for the MA in Islamic Studies at the College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar. Previously he taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge and the American University of Sharjah. His field of competence and research focus has been classical Islamic literature in Arabic, as it relates to Islamic jurisprudence and theology, within the context of the evolution of Muslim intellectual history. More specifically his field of specialism is Islamic Mysticism, or Sufism, in both its historical context and contemporary expression, including its social movements, mystical prose and devotional poetry. He has authored several articles and chapters on Islamic law, Sufism and the translation of Islamic literature. More specifically, he is the author of Spiritual Purification in Islam: The Life and Works of al-Muhasibi (London; New York: Routledge, 2011) and the editor of a four-volume compendium of selected articles titled Islamic Law (London; New York: Routledge, 2010).
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Islamic law has developed over many centuries of juristic effort into a subtle, complex, and highly developed reality. Thus, Islamic law, like any other, has its 'sources' (al-masadir); it also has its 'guiding principles' (al-usul) that dictate the nature of its 'evidence' (al-adilla); it equally employs the use of 'legal maxims' (al-qawa’id) and utilizes a number of underlying 'objectives' (al-maqasid) to underpin the structure of its legal theory.
Volume I of this new Routledge collection brings together the best scholarship to detail the origins and sources of Islamic law. The materials in Volume II, meanwhile, examine the genesis of schools of law, their utilization of specific juristic methodologies, and their development of legal theory. Volume III focuses on the consolidation and stagnation of Islamic law in the medieval period, since although the development of the schools and a number of competing legal theories played a huge role in the codification of Islamic law, at the same time the competitive nature of such methodologies led to divisiveness because of strict adherence to a specific school. The final volume in the collection examines Islamic law today, and the challenges of living in a modern, technologically advanced world.
Supplemented with a full index, Islamic Law includes a comprehensive introduction newly written by the editor which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is certain to be valued as a vital research resource.