God's Performative Speech: Abu Ya'la (d. 1065) and the Origins of Authoritarian Hermeneutics in Islamic Law

FAIN: FT-54547-06

David Reeves Vishanoff
University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC 29208-0001)

Among the several hermeneutical theories that emerged during the formative period of Islamic legal theory, all but one regarded the Qur'an as a piece of indicative evidence from which law must be inferred through a process of rational interpretation. The exception was formulated by Abu Ya`la, who argued that God's speech functions in the same way as a human speech act, bringing about obligations performatively with a certainty that precludes interpretive debate. This project explores the powerful and flexible hermeneutics that Abu Ya`la's theory of language was designed to support, and concludes that it laid the groundwork for contemporary Muslim jurists who limit Qur'anic meaning to a single obvious and uncontestable interpretation.

Associated Products

The Formation of Islamic Hermeneutics: How Sunni Legal Theorists Imagined a Revealed Law (Book)
Title: The Formation of Islamic Hermeneutics: How Sunni Legal Theorists Imagined a Revealed Law
Author: David R. Vishanoff
Editor: Gary Beckman
Editor: Peri Bearman
Editor: David P. Branner
Abstract: This book is the first historical analysis of those parts of Islamic legal theory that deal with the language of revelation, and a milestone in reconstructing the missing history of legal theory in the ninth and tenth centuries. It offers a fresh interpretation of al-Shafii’s seminal thought, and traces the development of four different responses to his hermeneutic, culminating in the works of Ibn Hazm, Abd al-Jabbar, al-Baqillani, and Abu Yala Ibn al-Farra. It reveals startling connections between rationalism and literalism, and documents how the remarkable diversity that characterized even traditionalist schools of law was eclipsed in the fifth/eleventh century by a pragmatic hermeneutic that gave jurists the interpretive power and flexibility they needed to claim revealed status for their legal doctrines. More than a detailed and richly documented history, this book opens new avenues for the comparative study of legal and hermeneutical theories, and offers new insights into unstated premises that shape and restrict Muslim legal discourse today. The book is of interest to all occupied with classical Islam, the development of Islamic law, and comparative hermeneutical research.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/item/VISFORMAT
Primary URL Description: Publisher / distributor's link.
Publisher: American Oriental Society
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780940490314
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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