Chapter 13 Interface of Science and Jurisprudence: Dissonant Gazes at the Body in Modern Muslim Ethics Ebrahim Moosa In the classical and post-classical periods the discipline of Islamic jurisprudence was relatively in tune with the scientific discourses of the day. Jurists (fuqahab) who were not averse to the “foreign sciences” (cilm al-awabil) ably demonstrated in their legal judgments that they were familiar with scientific disciplines of the day such as astronomy, anatomy, alchemy, physics, mathematics, and geometry. The practitioners, namely the jurists, of the sciences of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh), and the science of positive law (fiqh), accepted the working assumptions adopted in the field of science as a reality and there were rarely any major misfits between the two. On the occasion when there was tension it was often resolved in a creative and amicable manner. Most jurists of the classical period, for instance, insisted that in determining the lunar calendar, sighting the crescent with the naked eye was preferable in keeping with the report of the Prophet. A minority of jurists however declared astronomical calculations to be sufficient and a more accurate determination of the calendar. 1 Thus, the position of the Shafici school of law, while advocating the view in favor of naked eye sighting, also allows those who know astronomy to follow the certainty of their observations achieved by empirical means. Hence, people who hold such knowledge can actually proceed with the rituals associated with the lunar calendar that was determined by scientific calculations. While it is not my purpose to exhaust the examples of the interface between science and jurisprudence in the classical period and later, from the single example provided one can