The AMI Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

This third podcast in the series by the Center for Intra-Muslim Studies (CIMS) features Dr Muhammed Reza Tajri and a panel of scholars discussing how to address abuse in Muslim communities. The panel discuss the complexities of balancing the need to confront abuse with concerns about fueling Islamophobia. They explore various forms of abuse, such as spiritual and sexual abuse, and the power dynamics that contribute to them. The discussion highlights the importance of implementing safeguards, developing community-based justice systems, and exploring restorative justice approaches. The panelists also stress the need for accountability among religious leaders and suggest practical steps for communities to prevent abuse.

The Centre for Intra-Muslim Studies (CIMS) was established in 2015 to bring together Muslims from across the denominational spectrum to critically discuss ideas pertaining to Islamic theology, history, and contemporary issues affecting Muslims.

Whether or not non-Muslims are subject to Sharīʿa responsibilities has been treated in various contexts in works of uṣul al-fiqh and fiqh. Across schools of thought the prevalent view has been that non-Muslim are indeed subject to sharia responsibilities before God. This position is endorsed by Imāmī Shīʿa legal theorists such as Sharīf alMurtaḍā (d. 436/1044), Shaykh al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067), and ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 460/1067). Each of these considered the question within the context of the linguistic discussions of uṣul al-fiqh framed within enquiries regarding the scope of the imperative. Does the imperative include the non-Muslim and the slave as it includes the Muslim and the free person? This paper will examine how this position has been nuanced by some modern Shīʿī Uṣūlī’s, in response to an Akhbārī rejections of the prevalent view, by distinguishing between universal moral responsibilities applicable to all and particular Sharīʿa addresses only incumbent upon believers. The paper will further point to some contemporary implications of this distinction for our understanding of the nature and practice of Sharīʿa in plural contexts.

Legal and normative discourse has been integral to the fabric of Shīʿism since its inception. Revered across nearly all schools of Islam, the sixth Shīʿī Imām, Imām Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq (d. 765), stands as a paragon of juridical scholarship. The legal doctrines elucidated by Imām Jaʿfar and his immediate successors have purportedly been meticulously preserved by eminent figures such as al-Kulaynī (d. 941), Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 974), al-Ṣudūq (d. 991), and al-Ṭūsī (d. 1067) within their respective ḥadīth collections. These compendia collectively form a coherent corpus of legalistic discourse, distinctively associated with the Jaʿfarī school of thought. Within this corpus, a specific legal persona of the Imām is presupposed, wherein the linguistic formulation of legal pronouncements is contingent upon the recipient, while the underlying legal principles remain immutable and accessible solely to the Imām. Numerous traditions assert that God has conferred upon the Imām the authority of legal guardianship (al-wilāyah al-tashrīʿiya), enabling them to legislate per divine knowledge, thus allowing flexibility in expressing their legal rulings through various linguistic forms. The embodiment of this principle becomes evident when the Imām issues divergent rulings on the same matter due to specific circumstances, illustrating the dynamic nature of legal language. By recognizing the parallels between legal guardianship and other prevalent Jaʿfarī themes such as dissimulation (taqiyya) and intellectual accommodation (kalām ʿalā qadr ʿuqūl al-nās), one can argue that the aforementioned Shīʿī corpus posits a perspective on legal principles and legal language that is characterized by realism yet subject-dependency. Within this framework, the Imām not only receives legal principles but also interprets and applies them, emphasising the nuanced interplay between linguistic expression and the application of legal principles. Due to this, the Imām embodies a ‘proto-Uṣūlī’ role, applying consistent principles but issuing varied judgments based on circumstances, akin to a 'legal demiurge' endowed with divine authority. This meta-ethical stance, akin to ‘Platonic Moral Realism’, underscores the constancy of principles amidst changing moral judgments. Such a view significantly impacts the legal language used by the Imām, with specific rulings tailored for ‘common’ followers and general principles revealed to legally ‘qualified’ ones. The rejection of analogical reasoning (qiyās), attributed to the Imām, is also rooted in the belief that only he holds the necessary knowledge for accurate interpretation, ensuring clarity in legal meaning. Viewing the Imām as a ‘Divine Jurist’ reveals disparities in Jaʿfarī legal thought before and after the Occultation, shedding light on evolving synthetic legal trends amongst later Twelver communities. This perspective highlights Imāms’ distinct stance on the relationship between legal language and meaning, affirming the adaptability of the former and the permanence of the latter.

Despite their broad agreement about the definition of belief (īmān) and about key theological doctrine, Muslim scholars in the 15th-17th century Maghrib argued fiercely over whether and how to teach that doctrine to non-elite members of society. This seminar will explain the concepts, argumentation, and stakes of these disputes and discuss several moments when "the belief of the common folk" became an especially heated issue. In doing so, it moreover offers space to reflect on the appropriateness of translating īmān as belief and on the place of belief within Islamic thought.

Leaving Iberia: Islamic Law and Christian Conquest in North West Africa examines Islamic legal responses to Muslims living under Christian rule  in medieval and early modern Iberia and North Africa. The fall of al-Andalus, or Reconquista, has long been considered a turning point when the first substantial Muslim populations fell under permanent Christian rule. Yet a near-exclusive focus on conquered  Iberian Muslims has led scholars to overlook a substantial body of legal opinions issued in response to Portuguese and Spanish occupation in  Morocco itself, beginning in the early fifteenth century.

By moving beyond Iberia and following Christian conquerors and Muslim emigrants into North Africa, Leaving Iberia links the juristic discourses on conquered Muslims on both sides of the  Mediterranean, critiques the perceived exceptionalism of the Iberian  Muslim predicament, and adds a significant chapter to the story of  Christian–Muslim relations in the medieval Mediterranean. The final portion of the book explains the disparate fates of these medieval legal opinions in colonial Algeria and Mauritania, where jurists granted lasting authority to some opinions and discarded others.

Based on research in the Arabic manuscript libraries of five countries, Leaving Iberia offers the first fully annotated translations of the major legal texts under analysis.

Standpoints on the Belief in Imam Mahdi: A Sunni-Shia Discussion

Scrutinising the Sunni Standpoint on the belief in Imam Mahdi by Shaykh Muhammad Umar Ramadhan

Reassessing the Mainstream Shi'i Standpoint on the belief in Imam Mahdi by Prof. AbdulAziz Sachedina

In 874 CE, the eleventh Imam died, and the Imami community splintered. The institutions of the Imamate were maintained by the dead Imam's agents, who asserted they were in contact with a hidden twelfth Imam. This was the beginning of 'Twelver' Shiʿism. Edmund Hayes provides an innovative approach to exploring early Shiʿism, moving beyond doctrinal history to provide an analysis of the socio-political processes leading to the canonisation of the Occultation of the twelfth Imam. Hayes shows how these agents cemented their authority by reproducing the physical signs of the Imamate, including protocols of succession, letters and the alm taxes. Four of these agents were ultimately canonised as “envoys” but traces of earlier conceptions of authority remain embedded in the earliest reports. Hayes dissects the complex and contradictory Occultation narratives to show how, amidst the claims of numerous actors, the institutional positioning of the envoys allowed them to assert a quasi-Imamic authority in the absence of an Imam.

Ramon Harvey revisits the Muslim theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) from Samarqand and puts his system, and that of the Māturīdī school, into lively dialogue with modern thought. Combining rigorous study of Arabic Māturīdī texts with insights from Husserl’s phenomenology  and analytic theology, Harvey explores themes from epistemology and  metaphysics to the nature of God and specific divine attributes  (omniscience and wisdom, creative action, divine speech and the Qur’an).  His systematic treatment of these topics shows that a contemporary Islamic philosophical theology, or kalām jadīd, can be true to the past, yet dynamic in the present, and can provide original  and constructive answers to perennial theological questions.