Islamic Legal Minimalism: Legal Maxims and Lawmaking When Jurists Disappear

Abstract

The crisis about which Hossein Modarressi wrote so trenchantly in Crisis and Consolidation never quite disappeared.1 Major questions plaguing the third/ninth century Shīʿī community were recurring ones for the entire Muslim community. After Prophet Muhammad’s death—and in the absence of anyone who could claim his level of divinely sanctioned lawmaking, infallibility, and charismatic religious leadership—who had the authority to lead the community of Muslims, the wherewithal to guide on matters of belief and law? Such questions of the imāmate (with a little “i”—because not specific to Imāmī Shīʿī leadership) were central to ideals of Islamic political authority and religious leadership. They also touched closely on questions of law.