| FT-54547-06 | Research Programs: Summer Stipends | David Reeves Vishanoff | God's Performative Speech: Abu Ya'la (d. 1065) and the Origins of Authoritarian Hermeneutics in Islamic Law | 6/1/2006 - 8/31/2006 | $5,000.00 | David | Reeves | Vishanoff | | | | University of South Carolina | Columbia | SC | 29208-0001 | USA | 2006 | Religion, General | Summer Stipends | Research Programs | 5000 | 0 | 5000 | 0 |
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. |