Disagreements of the Jurists: A Manual of Islamic Legal Theory

A masterful overview of Islamic law and its diversity

Al-Qadi al-Nu'man was the chief legal theorist and ideologue of the North African Fatimid dynasty in the tenth century. This translation makes available for the first time in English his major work on Islamic legal theory (usul al-fiqh), which presents a legal model in support of the Fatimid claim to legitimate rule.

Composed as part of a grand project to establish the theoretical bases of the official Fatimid legal school, Disagreements of the Jurists expounds a distinctly Shi'i system of hermeneutics. The work begins with a discussion of the historical causes of jurisprudential divergence in the first Islamic centuries and goes on to engage, point by point, with the specific interpretive methods of Sunni legal theory. The text thus preserves important passages from several Islamic legal theoretical works no longer extant, and in the process throws light on a critical stage in the development of Islamic legal theory that would otherwise be lost to history.

An English-only edition.


About the Author
al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (Author)
Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 364/974) was born in Tunisia and joined the service of the Fatimids in 313/925, eventually rising to the position of supreme judge. As the most important jurist and legal author of the Fatimid Empire, his work founded Ismāʿīlī law as a discipline.

Devin Stewart (Editor, Translator)
Devin J. Stewart is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Emory University. He has written on the Qurʾan, Shiʿi Islam, and Islamic legal education.

John J. Coughlin (Foreword by)
John J. Coughlin is Global Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies and Law and NYU, Abu Dhabi and Affiliated Faculty at NYU Law School and author of Canon Law: A Comparative Study With Anglo-American Legal Theory and Law, Person and Community, Theological, Philosophical, and Comparative Perspectives on Canon Law.

John Sexton (Foreword by)
John Sexton is the Benjamin Butler Professor of Law at NYU and served as the 15th President of NYU from 2002 to 2015.