Sharia, universality, and pluralism: translocal dimensions
of legal culture and normativity
Lutz Rogler
Birgit Krawietz
The project brings into discussion, in a translocal perspective,
a group of problems associated with the evolution and transformation
of normative orientations as well as legal discourses and institutions
in Islamic societies and within Muslim minorities in Western societies
today. The translocal dimensions of the issues to be examined
result on the one hand from normative-legal aspects of globalisation,
and on the other from inner-Islamic discourses on the normativity
of Sharia in modern age or on the role of the normative-legal
heritage thereof in the preservation of a specific (legal-)cultural
Islamic identity. In the closing decades of the 20th century,
the Sharia has increasingly become a political issue in several
countries of the "Islamic world" as an "intersection
point" of debates concerning culture, religion and identity-preserving
heritage. Demands raised in this context and practical efforts
towards defining the Sharia as the "authentic" Islamic
normativity also appeared to be attempts to fend off the hegemony
of a Western legal culture or the normative-legal aspects of globalisation.
Normativity, ethics, social philosophy: the paradigm of maqasid
al-sharia as the foundation of "universal" legal
morals
Lutz Rogler
This sub-project will examine intellectual-historical and current
conceptual associations of an issue, which have found expression
towards the end of the 20th century in the inner-Islamic discussion
on the maqasid al-sharia (intentions or finalities of
the Sharia). The concept of the maqasid, historically
originating from the systematics of usul al-fiqh, was
first established as a common ground in legal-methodological discussion,
mainly among reformist circles. With the inclusion of ethical
and social-philosophical aspects, the maqasid have gained
the character of a "paradigm", which should serve as
an "authentic" Islamic foundation for "universal"
legal morals and facilitate new, "modern" normative
orientations while preserving a specific Islamic legal-cultural
identity. The principal concern of the sub-project is to reconstruct
the intellectual-historical background which has formed the groundwork
for the "upswing" of the maqasid concept since
the 1980s, as well as to understand the translocal ideological
movements which have given rise to the current discussion on "maqasid
al-sharia" being an ethical, socio-philosophical paradigm
with normative recognition rather than a legal-methodological
concept.
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and Our Times
Birgit Krawietz
This subproject explores how various normative Islamic doctrines
were received in the 19th and 20th century, taking the Hanbalitic
theologian, jurist, and preacher Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (died
1350) as an example. Although the literalistic text approach of
this renowned Sharia teacher has sometimes led to his being called
reactionary, his comprehensive and complex works radiate in several
different directions. His writings have been intensely exploited,
particularly in recent years, and adapted to very different contexts.
Analysis of the relevant literature shows a predominance of Salafitic
strategies to eclectically blend Ibn Al-Qayimm’s remarks
on Islamic normativity in the broadest sense, using even secular
or scientific knowledge. The review of Islamic publications on
and by Ibn al-Qayyim will include the Maghreb states and the Middle
East as well as the Indian Subcontinent.
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