Islamic Law and Society · 1999 · 91 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesHistoryJurisprudenceHistorical JurisprudenceIslamic StudiesMiddle Eastern StudiesIslamIslamic CivilizationIslamic HistoryIslamic JurisprudenceIslamic LawMiddle Eastern Intellectual HistoryEarly Islamic HistoryIslamic Law HistoryIslamic OriginsRoman Legal InstitutionsRoman Legal SourcesRoman Provincial IntegrationRoman Provincial RelationsSources Of Islamic Law
Abstract Western scholarship has attached considerable importance to the role played by scholars of non-Arab descent in the formative period of Islamic law and jurisprudence. This view can be challenged. In a sample taken from a biographical collection of important legal scholars compiled in the fifth/eleventh century, "true" Arabs constituted the majority; three quarters of the non-Arab scholars had an eastern background and came from the regions of the former Sassanian empire; and only a few scholars had clearly Christian or Jewish roots. This result lends no support to the assumption that jurists of non-Arab descent brought solutions from their natal legal systems — Roman, Roman provincial and Jewish law — to early Islamic law.