Lena Salaymeh

2017 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, Textual Studies

The Beginnings of Islamic Law is a major and innovative contribution to our understanding of the historical unfolding of Islamic law. Scrutinizing its historical contexts, the book proposes that Islamic law is a continuous intermingling of innovation and tradition. Salaymeh challenges the embedded assumptions in conventional Islamic legal historiography by developing a critical approach to the study of both Islamic and Jewish legal history. Through case studies of the treatment of war prisoners, circumcision, and wife-initiated divorce, she examines how Muslim jurists incorporated and transformed 'Near Eastern' legal traditions. She also demonstrates how socio-political and historical situations shaped the everyday practice of law, legal education, and the organization of the legal profession in the late antique and medieval eras. Aimed at scholars and students interested in Islamic history, Islamic law, and the relationship between Jewish and Islamic legal traditions, this book's interdisciplinary approach provides accessible explanations and translations of complex materials and ideas.

Salaymeh, Lena. "Goldziher dans le rôle du bon orientaliste. Les méthodes de l'impérialisme intellectuel." In The Territories of Philosophy in Modern Historiography, edited by Catherine König-Pralong, Mario Meliadò and Zornitsa Radeva, 89-103. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2019.


Please note this article is published with Brepols Publishers as a Gold Open Access article under a Creative Commons CC 4.0: BY-NC license.

The article is also freely available on the website of Brepols Publishers: https://www.brepolsonline.net/action/showBook?doi=10.1484%2FM.ADARG-EB.5.117384&  under this same license.

يوجز هذا المقال بعضَ أفكار الفصل الأول من كتابي بدايات الفقه الإسلامي

https://nohoudh-center.com/%D8%AD%D9%88%D9%84%D9%8E-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AE%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7/

Salaymeh, Lena, and Zvi Septimus. "Temporalities of marriage: medieval Jewish and Islamic legal debates." In Talmudic transgressions: engaging the work of Daniel Boyarin, edited by Charlotte Fonrobert, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Aharon Shemesh and Moulie Vidas, 201-39. Leiden: Brill, 2017.

AbstractOn January 14, 2011, after twenty-three years in power and one month of popular protest demanding his resignation, President Ben Ali fled Tunisia. Lawyers, wearing their official robes, had marched frequently in the uprising's demonstrations. By engaging with and supporting the uprising, lawyers—both the profession in general and the bar's leadership—gained considerable symbolic influence over the post-uprising government that replaced Ben Ali's regime. This article outlines the various forms of political lawyering undertaken by Tunisian lawyers and their professional associations from Tunisia's independence to post-uprising transitions. We demonstrate that economic concerns, professional objectives, and civic professionalism contributed to the collective action of Tunisian lawyers before and after the uprising. Tunisian lawyers moved beyond the realm of their profession to adopt a role as overseers of the post-uprising government.

Common modes of comparing Jewish and Islamic legal traditions are limited by deep structural assumptions that may be traced to three comparative disciplines that emerged in post-Enlightenment Europe. Comparative philology, comparative religion, and comparative law emphasized linearity and genealogy, with prejudicial and essentializing implications. This article examines how certain disciplinary methods continue to shape the underlying conceptual assumptions of Judeo-Islamic studies through a case study on circumcision, a practice shared by Jews and Muslims. When late antique circumcision is situated within its socio-political, geographic, and intellectual contexts and when it is defined in relation to its correlative terms and concepts, it becomes clear that Jews and Muslims understood and practiced circumcision in distinct ways. These heuristics of critical historical jurisprudence clarify the non-linear and overlapping relationship between Jewish and Islamic legal traditions. The implication of critical historical jurisprudence for contemporary controversies surrounding circumcision is recognizing the inadequacy and limiting consequences of modern categories and concepts.

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