Cover -- Original Title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- List of transliteration -- CHAPTER I: Introduction -- A. Purpose and nature of the study -- B. Theory and methodology -- C. Previous research -- D. Introductionary remarks on analytical concepts -- E. Modernity, postmodernism and secularism -- CHAPTER II: The Nature of Islamic law -- A. An Islamic legal system? Law, jurisprudence and ethics -- B. Law and spirituality: Shi'i esoterism -- CHAPTER III: Categories of traditional Islamic epistemology -- A. Knowledge and science -- B. The 'historical-empirical' epistemic scheme -- C. The 'theological', 'philosophical' and 'mystical' epistemic schemes -- D. The 'juristic-rational' epistemic scheme -- CHAPTER IV: Shi'i legal dogmatics -- A. Uşūl al-fiqh (legal theory) -- B. The constant sources of law: The Qur'an, sunnat and ijmāc (consensus) -- C. The non-constant source of law: ᶜaql (reason) -- D. Ijtihād (independent reasoning) and taqlīd (emulation) -- E. Ḥauzah-yi ᶜilmīyah ('precinct of knowledge') -- F. Hermeneutical principles -- G. Interpretative pluralism and ikhtiläf (divergence) -- CHAPTER V: Islamic traditionalism and Islamic modernism -- A. An Introduction to Islamic traditionalism -- B. The Islamic traditionalist position of ᶜAbdullāh Jawādī-Ᾱmulī -- C. An Introduction to Islamic modernism -- D. The Islamic modernist position of Muhammad Mujtahid-Shabistarī -- CHAPTER VI: Surūsh on the nature of Islamic law -- A. The Biography of ᶜAbd al-Karim Surūsh -- B. Style of communication -- C. Philosophical foundation: Critical realism -- D. Modernity and the West -- E. Religion -- F. Jurisprudence -- G. Ijtihād -- H. Ḥauzah -- CHAPTER VII: Surūsh's theory of contraction and expansion of religious knowledge -- A. Its principal objectives -- B. History: The Stage of natural man.

C. Critical rationality: Self-determining and liberated -- D. Science: Falsification and corroboration -- E. Religious epistemology: Divine absolute or provisional conjecture? -- F. Epistemological ambiguities: A priori and a posteriori -- G. Epistemic relativism or epistemological relativism -- H. Hermeneutics: There is nothing beyond the text -- I. Divergent interpretations: The Problem of truth and probability -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index.

This study analyses the major intellectual positions in the philosophical debate on Islamic law that is occurring in contemporary Iran. As the characteristic features of traditional epistemic considerations have a direct bearing on the modern development of Islamic legal thought, the contemporary positions are initially set against the established normative repertory of Islamic tradition. It is within this broad examination of a living legacy of interpretation that the context for the concretizations of traditional as well as modern Islamic learning, are enclosed.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.