Writing and authority in The Calligraphic State
Brinkley Messick’s account of highland Yemen follows texts through the practices and institutions that gave them authority.
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Articles
Case comments, document notes, books and research guides.
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What a history of legal formation has to explain
Wael Hallaq’s Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law provides a starting point for separating the history of texts from the development of legal institutions.
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Two provincial courts in Ottoman Anatolia
Boğaç Ergene’s study of Çankırı and Kastamonu offers a comparison of legal practice through two bounded bodies of court records.
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Forty-one documents and several layers of description
Princeton’s Islamic MSS Third Series 584e preserves documents together with later descriptions that do not always identify them in the same way.
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Reading Islamic law in context
A court judgment, a jurist's opinion, a manuscript: each asks a different kind of question. Start with the document, then follow its context.
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Akhter v. Khan: read the case through the appeal
Why a discussion of the 2018 marriage case needs a second date: the Court of Appeal's decision of 14 February 2020.
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Women, learning and authority in China's Hui communities
Matthew S. Erie's 2016 symposium is a starting point for asking how religious learning and legal authority are described in a particular setting.
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From a manuscript catalogue to a research claim
A digitized page is an object with a history. Separate the text, the physical copy and the catalogue's interpretation before drawing a conclusion.
Research guideRead
Opinion, judgment, statute: identify the source
Document types are a research tool. Ask who speaks, to whom, and with what institutional effect before comparing legal materials.
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Islamic finance: follow the contract
A label is a starting point. A useful account follows assets, obligations, governing law and the institutions that make a transaction work.
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Translation is part of the legal argument
Translation and transliteration solve different problems. Preserve the term, the passage and the translator's choice in your research notes.
Methods notebookRead
Read a roundtable as a conversation
Agreement on a case's importance does not mean agreement on its reasoning. Map the contributors' questions before comparing their answers.
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