The foundation of norms in Islamic jurisprudence and theology /

In this book, Omar Farahat presents a new way of understanding the work of classical Islamic theologians and legal theorists who maintained that divine revelation is necessary for the knowledge of the norms and values of human actions. Through a reconstruction of classical Ash'ari-Mu'tazil...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Farahat, Omar, 1982- (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Subjects:
Online Access:CONNECT
Table of Contents:
  • Cover; Half-title; Title page; Copyright information; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Classical Islamic Thought and the Promise of Post-Secularism; I.1 Divine Revelation in Legal and Moral Thought; I.2 Appropriating Classical Islamic Thought; I.3 Scope of Study and Chapter Outline; Part I Epistemological and Metaphysical Foundations; 1 What Do We Know without Revelation?: The Epistemology of Divine Speech; 1.1 The Muʿtazilī Model: Knowledge as the Outcome of a Universal Causal Process; 1.1.1 Muʿtazilī Epistemology: Uniformity, Inwardness, and Causality
  • 1.1.2 Uniformity of Reasoning and the Attainment of Moral Judgments; 1.2 The Ashʿarī Response: Knowledge as Contingent Acquisition of Factual Truth; 1.2.1 Outline of Ashʿarī Epistemology: Knowledge as Habitual Process; 1.2.2 The Limits of Human Cognition and the Necessity of Revelation; 1.3 Epistemological Skepticism and the Broader Case for Divine Command Theory; 1.4 Conclusion; 2 God in Relation to Us: The Metaphysics of Divine Speech; 2.1 The Basic Divide between Necessary and Accidental Existence; 2.2 The Muʿtazilī Model: God as Similar but Superior
  • 2.3 The Ashʿarī Model: God as Utterly Distinct from Created Beings; 2.4 Conclusion; 3 The Nature of Divine Speech in Classical Theology; 3.1 The Natural Law Model: Divine Speech as Action; 3.2 The Divine-Command Model: Speech as an Eternal Attribute; 3.2.1 Inner Speech within the Ashʿarī Metaphysical Framework; 3.2.2 Inner Speech and Its Concrete Manifestations; 3.3 The Function of Revelation in the Process of Norm-Construction; 3.3.1 Revelation as Promoter of Normative Knowledge; 3.3.2 Revelation as a Miraculous Introduction of the Possibility of Universal Norms; 3.4 Conclusion
  • Part II The Construction of Norms in Islamic Jurisprudence; 4 The Nature of Divine Commands in Classical Legal Theory; 4.1 Are Divine Command Theories Inherently Contrary to Moral Autonomy?; 4.2 Divine Commands as Humanlike Expressions of Will; 4.2.1 Muʿtazilīs and the Common Idea of Command; 4.2.2 Command as a Product of the Will; 4.3 The Ashʿarī Conception of Commands as Divine Attributes; 4.3.1 Divine Command Is Not the Observable Utterance; 4.3.2 Divine Command as Inner Speech; 4.4 Conclusion; 5 Divine Commands in the Imperative Mood
  • 5.1 Collective Deliberation: Community as the Site of Production of Norms; 5.2 Faithfulness to Revelation: The Argument for Suspension of Judgment; 5.2.1 The Inner Complexity of the Imperative Mood; 5.2.2 Suspension of Judgment as a Self-Imposed Restriction; 5.3 Normativity as the Jurists' Domain: Arguments for the Presumption of Obligation; 5.3.1 Extralinguistic Premises of the Semantic Presumption of Obligation; 5.3.2 The Attempt to Establish Normativity as a Linguistic Phenomenon; 5.4 Conclusion; 6 The Persistence of Natural Law in Islamic Jurisprudence