Islamic Law from the Internal Point of View

Abstract

Haider Hamoudi notes the different perspectives lawyers and historians employ in making sense of the law. Invoking H.L.A. Hart’s famous distinction between “internal” and “external” points of view with respect to law and legal rules, Hamoudi describes lawyers as primarily adopting the former, and historians, the latter point of view. This is not to suggest that lawyers do not take history into consideration, but rather to mean that when they do, their focus is results oriented in that they use history to understand the ultimate endpoint, the contemporaneous meaning of a legal rule or institution. Hamoudi observes two consequences emanating from lawyers’ adoption of the internal view that puts lawyers somewhat at odds with the demands of historical method and meaning. While deliberately omitting discussion on the normative desirability of either method, Hamoudi concludes by observing value in merely pointing out the differences between the internal and external viewpoints of law and history, respectively, to help expose “our own biases and assumptions.”