There is no doubt that this book is a significant landmark in the representation of Islamic legal thought and its history. Its scope and scale by themselves demonstrate its monumentality: twenty-three chapters each dedicated to one Muslim scholar, beginning with Abū Hanīfa (who died in 767 CE) and ending with Hasan al-Turābī who was born in 1932 CE and is still living. In addition to exceeding a dozen centuries in temporal length, the geographic breadth is formidable: essentially the Arab world, including also representatives of Andalusian Spain, Persia, Central Asia, and the Turkish centre of the Ottoman Empire. In the “modern” period (the last of a tripartite periodisation preceded by the “formative” and the “classical” periods), the book adds the late Ottoman Levant, and the extant states of Morocco, Sudan and Egypt.

It bears remembering that Islamic (legal) history is not restricted to this domain. Most of Asia and all of Africa south of the Sahara are excluded from this book. The exclusion reflects a dominant (but not an uncontested) view among historians of Islamic law regarding who the influential, interesting, or important jurists are. Nevertheless, it is also important to acknowledge that fundamentally this is a book viewing Islamic legal thought from the Arab centre. Consequently, almost the entirety of the source material is Arabic. However, both before and after the modern period (defined in this book as commencing in 1798), there is a strong case for a more inclusive survey, in terms of both world regions and languages. The case is the strongest in the modern period – especially in view of legal developments in South and Southeast Asia. The book does not acknowledge the Arab centre as a centre, or its own centrism – which is why the point deserves mentioning here.

The book does not purport to be exhaustive (except insofar as the title “Islamic Legal Thought” implies a comprehensive scope); nor could it (or any single work) be. In the preface the editors accurately and reasonably observe that it would be impractical to include “all major jurists from each century” or to “represent all schools.” To their credit the editors also assiduously avoid any bias towards the present. Fewer than one-fifth of the book's pages are dedicated to the modern period: four out of twenty-three jurists. The comparatively greater scope given to what the book calls the “classical” era helps explain but does not fully justify the near exclusive dominance of Arab figures.

The originality of the approach chosen by the editors lies not in the selection of scholars nor in the distribution of their geographic origins. It lies rather in its biographical method. The subtitle of the book is “A Compendium of Muslim Jurists”. Each chapter furnishes a biography and a sample of the selected scholar's work in translation. “The biographies emphasize first, the scholarly milieu in which the particular jurist worked – his teachers, colleagues and pupils, and his relations with the political authorities; and second, his scholarly output and the kind of juridical thinking for which he is well known” (editors’ introduction, p. 1). The gender of the personal pronouns in the quotation is not neutral; this representation of Islamic legal thought, which is exclusively male, more likely than not reflects the historical reality of the Islamic legal tradition rather than any unjustified omissions from this volume. However, one might want to take exception to that state of affairs (and perhaps could find increasing reason to do so in the last few, and also the less thoroughly canvassed, decades.)

The biographical method is good for some purposes and not for others. The stated goal of this book “is to show how the development of Islamic law is the product of the contributions of individual jurists working in particular times and places” (editors’ introduction, p. 1). The work succeeds in this. It follows other works that bring Muslim judicial personnel to the fore: Muhammad Khalid Masud, Brinkley Messick, David S. Powers (eds.), Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and their Fatwas (Cambridge, Mass. 1996) and Muhammad Khalid Masud, Rudolph Peters, David S. Powers (eds.), Dispensing Justice in Islam; Qadis and their Judgments (Leiden 2006). As the editors forthrightly state, this volume does not deal (as those other two do) with “the actual implementation of the law” such as might be found in court records and “juridical opinions” (editors’ introduction, p. 4). It is true that this book does not concern the implementation of the law. There is almost nothing on civil or criminal procedure, evidence, sanctions and sentencing, or formalities. However, in actuality this book does not state the law either. It does not attempt to. Nor should it, actually; it would exceed the purview of a work the primary purpose of which is historiographical to state the law – although the classic Orientalist works (such as Joseph Schacht, An introduction to Islamic law (Oxford 1964) and N.J. Coulson, A history of Islamic law (Edinburgh 1964)) are not so coy about conflating the history of Islamic law and that law itself. Readers ought not then to treat this book as a source on family, criminal, trust, tort, land or contract/commercial law, although selections from the translated selections might serve to supplement other materials.

Rather, this volume elucidates Islamic legal thought. The translated excerpts are selected to convey the contribution each jurist makes to the methods of Islamic jurisprudence (editors’ introduction, p. 1). Mapping the Anglo-American distinction between jurisprudence and law onto Islam, the distinction roughly equates to that between usūl and furū’, the roots and branches respectively (as set out in the editors’ introduction, p. 3). The former concerns theoretical basis. The latter consists in the rules. Most chapters contain both. However, the exposition of the rules is incidental to the book's stated purpose. Mainly the chapters excavate and examine the usūl, the roots. The result of the attention to logical, analytical and argumentative methods rather than legal doctrine is the revelation of the considerable variety, sophistication and, in some cases, the sheer ingenuity of Muslim jurists.

The phraseology “Islamic legal thought” carefully avoids equating usūl with legal theory or philosophy. To clarify and add supporting evidence to that formulation: there is no general theory of contract in Islamic law. The absence of legal theory at contract law appears to equally well characterise Islamic law tout court; this reviewer at least is unaware of any sustained counterexample – but also unaware of any systematic effort to establish or to refute the proposition. In the instant case of this book there are, however, several Muslim jurists whose offerings can reasonably be characterised as at once legal and theoretical: al-Shāfi‘ī on “Hermeneutical Problems and Techniques Affecting Prophetic Reports” (pp. 61–64); Ibn Hazm on the rules of legal deduction (pp. 224–230); al-Shātibī on the doctrine of maqāsid al-sharī'a (objectives of the law) (pp. 360–364); and Muhammad Bāqir al-Bihbihānī on qiyās or analogical reasoning (pp. 429–432). Some individual jurists such as these four attempted to summarise and fix Islamic jurisprudential precepts. However, one effect of the biographical approach is that no such bid for interpretative hegemony prevails. This rather accurately reflects the decentralised reality of Islamic law. Thus the methodology chosen by the editors simultaneously represents and reveals the pluralistic character of the Islamic legal system.

The biographies and – insofar as known – the detailed reception and surrounding socio-political context in which particular jurists wrote humanises, as it were, the law. As noted above, an expected consequence of the life-driven narrative formula is the de-privileging of legal doctrine. The lives-in-the-law or the-law-in-lives approach (to coin some phrases) demonstrated to this reviewer how knowledge about the individuality, circumstances, and even the humanity of the jurist may indeed work against the “majesty” of the law which is by its very essence impersonal in nature. (This is surely neither more nor less true with Islamic law than it would be in the study of any other legal tradition or system, including English law.)

It should be frankly acknowledged that the historical detail in the book is arcane. This really is the playground of specialist historians; many of the connections, conflicts, and controversies between teachers and their students (or their patrons, opponents, interlocutors, or enemies), their position in the main Islamic legal “schools”, and the catalogues of their writings will mean little to someone without a good handle on classical Islamic legal history. Even to a knowledgeable person the sheer scope of the book will ensure some period or chapters will seem scholastic. This is intended as a factual observation, not a criticism; it is also intended as fair warning that the “general reader” (that elusive creature) may not appreciate the allusive intricacy of the socio-historical biographical material. Notwithstanding the rewards reserved for dedicated specialists, the reader who happens to be of that rare, general breed – or simply unusually brave and adventurous – would still benefit from a reading as it would reveal the complexity, dynamism and the historical transformations undergone by Islamic law – attributes not commonly ascribed to the topic by the popular imagination.

On occasion the translated legal materials themselves more effectively elucidate the social context in which their author was embedded than any quantum of historiography could. Recognising the mischiefs to which the law (whether statutory or juristic in origin) responds forms its own brand of historiography, even though the law lacks retrospection. The family law matters of marriage, divorce, child custody, re-marriage, and the regulation of sexual conduct hold interest relevant in this connection. In a particularly intriguing instance, Ahmad b. Hanbal took up that vexing question of “the divorce of an intoxicated man” (pp. 102–103); also inheritance, and charitable trusts (waqf)(p. 202); hunting and ritual slaughter as taken up by Abū Ja‘far al-Tahāwī; whether the milk of a dead animal may be drunk (p. 133) or whether a sheep fallen to its death may be eaten (p. 135). There is rich detail and there are fine distinctions drawn about ritual pollution – the effect of a “dry dog” or of wine soiling a robe in which the wearer is about to pray (p. 203).

Notwithstanding this volume's deliberate attempt to attend the more rarefied topic of jurisprudential methods and reasoning, statements of bare judicial opinion offer up unexpected and delightful glimpses of Muslim life and Islamic social institutions. With some notable exceptions the vast majority of jurists the world over are not superb stylists. Sadly, judgments or fatāwa seldom rise to the level of belles-lettres. However, some of those excerpted here have their own not inconsiderable charms, owing as much of course to the discernment and economical eloquence of contributing authors as to the jurists themselves.

The “letting the texts speak for themselves” approach is still a novelty in the secondary literature on Islamic law. While there is not only room, but also demand (from a variety of quarters), for scholarship surveying Islamic legal doctrine, there is also scope for more and more inclusive study of fatāwa which this volume should help encourage. The primary material – notwithstanding the antiquity of the preponderance of it – was in the main rather approachable, thanks to both the Arabic source material and the linguistic sensitivity of the authors/translators. In a number of cases, however, chapters ended with a translation with no further commentary; or with a perfunctory conclusion. This seemed to give the reader too much credit; further assistance (for a modern reader) with the fatāwa and help in understanding what was at stake most probably would be warranted.

To the extent that a reader wishes to treat this as a reference work on Islamic law – mindful of the caveats above – they will find some persuasive authorities on a range of substantive and technical topics catalogued in the general index. This index is accompanied by more specialised indices of Arabic terms and Qur‘ānic verses.

In conclusion, this volume is a major contribution. It is one from which current scholars will benefit and one upon which subsequent generations will build. The “personalisation” of Islamic law, accomplished through the biographical approach, will not greatly aid lawyers or practitioners seeking to come to grips with Islamic law, nor those preoccupied with modern times. However, it will richly reward those seeking to better appreciate the intellectual nuances and the intricate complexities of early and classical Islamic legal thought.