Religion, Law & Learning in Classical Islam

This second selection of articles by George Makdisi concentrates on the schools of religious thought and legal learning in the medieval Islamic world and their defence of a€?orthodoxya€?. The author aims to review and re-assess the implications of the conflict between, first, the a€?rationalista€? and the a€?traditionala€? theologians (the one accepting the influence of Greek philosophy, the other rejecting it), and then between one of these traditionalist schools - the Hanbali school of law - and Sufi mysticism. One of the most important consequences of the first of these confrontations, he contends, was the emergence of the schools of law as the guardians of the faith and theological orthodoxy. The final section of the book also looks at the structure of legal learning, at the institutions themselves, their organization and the principles upon which they operated. As well as entering the debate over the existence of corporations and guilds of law in classical Islam - maintaining that they did exist - these articles further suggest links between such institutions and the evolution of universities in the medieval West, and the Inns of Court in England, and discuss the Islamic and Arabic contribution to the concepts of academic amd intellectual freedom and to the development of scholasticism and humanism. Cette seconde collection da€?articles par George Makdisi se concentre sur les Accoles de la pensAce religieuse et de la science juridique, dans le monde islamique mAcdiAcval. La€?auteur a pris pour objectif de rAcviser et de rAc-Acvaluer les implications du conflit entre, premiA‥rement, les thAcologiens rationalistes et traditionalistes (les premiA‥res Actant ouverts A la€?influence de la philosophie grecque que les seconds rejettaient) et, deuxiA‥mement, entre la€?une de ces Accoles traditionalistes - la€?Accole de droit Hanbali - et le mysticisme Sufi. La€?une des consAcquences les plus importantes, selon lui, de la premiA‥re de ces confrontations A ActAc la poussAce des Accoles de droit en tant que guardiennes de la foi et de la€?orthodoxie thAcologique. La derniA‥re section du livre jette aussi un regard sur la structure de la€?apprentissage du droit, sur les institutions A proprement dit et sur les principes selon lesquels elles fonctionnaient. Tout en prenant part au debut sur la€?existence ce de corporations et de guildes juridiques (dont la€?auteur est convaincu) A la€?Acpoque de la€?Islam classique, ces articles suggA‥rent, de plus, la prAcsence de liens entre les dites institutions et le dAcveloppement des universitiAcs en Occident; y est aussi discutAce la contribution islamique et arabe au concept de libertAcs acadAcmiques et intellectuelles et A la€?Acvolution de la scolastique et de la€?humanisme.