Fiqh Page 1 of 34 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: University of Toronto Libraries; date: 05 December 2016 Fiqh Anver M. Emon The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law Edited by Anver M. Emon and Rumee Ahmed Abstract and Keywords This article examines the production and analysis of fiqh by surveying Islamic legal scholarship. It highlights the implications different analytic approaches bring to the study of fiqh as both doctrine and literary genre. Starting with an overview of debates about legal reform in the context of “modernity,” the article proceeds to an analysis of philology as a disciplinary frame and its limits. The article then turns to studies of philology in conversation with history and the perceived demise of philology in the British and North American academy. Thereafter, the article explores fiqh as a genre of legal literature that informs interpretive approaches in the social sciences, including the literature on Islamic law and anthropology and the fatwa as a site of legal practice in contrast to fiqh. Finally, it looks at fiqh as the object of critique and offers suggestions for future research. Keywords: fiqh, Islamic legal scholarship, legal reform, philology, history, social sciences, Islamic law, anthropology, fatwa, critique I. Introduction Fiqh is a curious term of art, let alone genre of literature, in Islamic legal history. In the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2 ed, fiqh is initially defined as “understanding, knowledge, intelligence,” but is later specified for its technical legal use to mean “jurisprudence,” specifically the legal doctrinal jurisprudence of Islamic law. Its scope is wide: “[i]n addition to the laws regulating ritual and religious observances (ʿibādāt), containing orders and prohibitions, it includes the whole field of family law, the law of inheritance, of property and contracts and obligations, in a word provisions for all the legal questions that arise in social life (muʿāmalāt); it also includes criminal law and procedure, and finally constitutional law and laws regulating the administration of the state and the conduct of war.” Often the terms fiqh and furuʿ (branches) are used to refer to the same Subject: Law, Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, Law and Society Online Publication Date: Dec 2016 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199679010.013.4 nd 1 Oxford Handbooks Online