Date Published:

Abstract:

Jon Whitman, in his opening contribution to the collections of essays Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period, poses questions about interpretive communities’ assessment of the “literal sense” of canonical texts, about the criteria for downplaying parts of these texts in the process of allegorization, about the influence of enhanced allegorization on changes in the interpretive communities, and the continuities of idiom and orientation behind such changes. This essay discusses the answers that can be derived from the Muslim tradition, and, in particular, from the system of Muslim legal hermeneutics known as uṣūl al-fiqh, to these questions, and explores how these questions can illuminate interdisciplinary understanding of the functions of the literal sense in contrasting intellectual traditions.

January 2024: Robert Gleave is Professor of Arabic Studies in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. From January 2023 until January 2026 he is British Academy/Wolfson Professor with the research project “The Foundations of Modern Shi’ism: The End of Akhbārism and the Beginnings of Uṣūlism.” His research focuses on Islamic legal theory and practice, particularly legal hermeneutics, and the history of Shi’ite legal thought and institutions. He has directed a number of international research projects exploring these issues. His most recent research projects (concluded in 2022), were Law, Authority and Learning in Imami Shi’ite Islam, funded by the European Research Council, and Islamic Law on the Edge, in collaboration with Dr Adday Hernandez-Lopez of Complutense University, Madrid, examining neglected and marginalized areas of Islamic legal studies.

Publisher's Version