Speaker 1 00:00:07 I folks, the society Ayako and you're listening to history speaks on the Medan podcast, a series that situates the Islamic intellectual tradition within its social sociopolitical context and connects it to pertinent issues. Today. In this episode, I'll be speaking with <inaudible> and Matthew Steele about their research on Islamic law in regions that are often treated as peripheral. Matthew looks at the Malik illegal school across Sudan, one or Tanya and Guinea, and much more studies, the Sheffield legal school across the Indian ocean, connecting East Africa, Yemen, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Our conversation covered many important topics in the study of Islamic law. Thinking about the life of legal texts as it traveled across the Afro Asian world. The construction of the center and periphery is in the study of Islamic law and the relation between Arabic and local languages in the writing and teaching of legal texts without further ado. Here's my conversation with Moore and Matthew.
Speaker 0 00:01:17 All right, well, thank you so much more than Matthew for joining me today and, uh, coming to speak with me about your research and your scholarship on Islamic law. Um, I wanted to begin by asking you, if you could give us a sense of, um, you know, geographically temporarily, give us a sense of, you know, where you're located and what specifically you're studying.
Speaker 2 00:01:41 Thank you, Matthew. And thank you also for having me, uh, on this podcast, which is a very, uh, important, uh, sort of conversation on the history of Islamic law. Uh, for me personally, what I, I do sort of like both, uh, temporarily and regionally, uh, something that cuts, uh, cuts, cuts across different regions and, uh, periods. Uh, even then I would, uh, mostly suited my work as part of, uh, the Indian ocean world. Uh, so that in itself is a large geographical area. Uh, so mostly on Eastern Africa, uh, Southern Arabia, uh, and then coastal South Asia and then South distribution. These are some of the areas that I sort of look at for my research and, uh, also, uh, temporarily I start, uh, by around nine century and then go up to 19th and even mid 20th century. And I do this mainly because the history of Islamic law in the Indian ocean world, so to speak, uh, before, uh, for a time period before, uh, 1800 is, uh, rarely explored.
Speaker 2 00:02:56 Uh, and, uh, then also I don't, uh, like to, you know, uh, do the, uh, or I also do not aim to do a comprehensive study of the whole, uh, international world. My focus is primarily on the history of, uh, Shafi is called, uh, law after the classical period. And so I, uh, look at one particular, uh, legal text returning 13th century, uh, in Syria and the ways in which it was, uh, circulated across the Indian ocean, uh, region. So in that sense, my work sort of starts in the, uh, Mediterranean or Eastern Mediterranean and then, uh, goes to the Indian ocean. And then the ways in which this particular text <inaudible> was, uh, circulated in the Indian ocean literal through Saudi Arabia, uh, to East Africa, to South Asia, to Southeast Asia, through multiple commentaries, super commentaries super-super commentaries and translations and so forth. So that is why I have a sort of textural code, so to speak that connects all these regions and time periods.
Speaker 1 00:04:10 That sounds great. Thank you. I love the, uh, this tradition of, you know, you have a text and commentary and then, then the commentary on the commentary and it just kind of keeps going there was this really great meme. I don't know if you guys saw recently on, um, siblings of Ellen MS-DOS I think UK based group. And so they had this like little meme that was going around on social media, giving people a sense of what exactly these commentaries do, where you have like this kind of initial texts that has one sentence. And by the time you get to the super commentary, there's like six pages describing that one sentence. And I was like, this is so great, Matthew.
Speaker 3 00:04:45 Yes. Um, so, uh, first thank you very much for having me, I'm hugely flattered to be part of the conversation and the part of the podcast, and also to be in the discussion with my, um, so kind of similarly, but in a very different region. Um, I work on Islamic law in, in Africa, um, specifically in Sahara and in Sub-Saharan Africa. Um, I focus most, especially on, on Mauritania, um, Sudan, um, getting, um, temp poorly. Um, I, and I think my own kind of pointed to this in his own work, sort of my historical period is, is, um, um, you know, very much kind of confined and limited by the source material that is available to us. Um, and so although, uh, Islamic law has a much longer history in Africa, then, uh, I focus on, um, I'm mostly began focusing in sort of the 16th century Mauritania, um, and the 18th, the 19th century in Sudan at about that same time period and in Guinea as well.
Speaker 3 00:05:48 Um, and I, you know, in, in, in, in Africa, Islamic law is, you know, most associated in the literature with the enforcement of Islamic law with, with his administration by gentlemen, by, by modern States colonial or post-colonial. Um, and that really isn't my interest. I'm trying to kind of bring out a more nuanced store or texture picture of Islamic law by focusing on, on, on Islamic jurisprudence or FIP, um, as kind of a, the Scholastic or speculative enterprise of legacy nickel specialists, um, really at the peripheries or below, um, the much kind of larger and more celebrated centers was long as scholarship in places like Egypt and Morocco. Um, and so, you know, by focusing on Muslima cloud, not as just what States do, um, but actually kind of more discursive and in dynamic exchange between generally independent legal scholars and the communities that they are embedded in managed with olivine.
Speaker 3 00:06:49 I also focus on a 14th century MADEC illegal texts. So I work in the, in the <inaudible>, um, uh, world in Africa, um, a 14th century Maliki legal text, uh, it's the abridgment of, of an Egyptian Scotland, how the litmus hap, um, so it's called the cluster of how do you, um, or in difficult places of Mauritania, and those words will often just be kind of abbreviated to as hubby. Um, and so I follow it, I try to sort of trace and explore how Islamic law as a Scholastic discipline and speculative endeavor develops oftentimes through and around with this text, um, through exactly like Mahmud through commentaries and super commentaries, and especially in the Sahara Mauritania through versification, which is super fun and difficult, um, and even, uh, uh, uh, just, uh, dress consoled opinions through, through NAZA literature, uh, and things like that
Speaker 1 00:07:44 Really interesting, you know, both of you saying this thing pointing out the ways in which, um, in the particular, you know, regions that you're, that you're looking at a Sonic law has often been understood in particular way. So men will do are saying this thing that, um, you know, that it hasn't been that largely sort of a Sonic law in South and Southeast Asia is studied from the 18th century onwards and not much earlier, uh, or, you know, Matthew, you were saying about the ways in which largely a Sonic laws, uh, in the context of West Africa looked at, or even, you know, so then looked at in terms of state and state implementation of, uh, Islamic law and that, you know, both of you are trying to kind of push these ways in which largely, um, the scholarship has thought about Islamic law in these regions. So connected to that. I wanted to ask you, so what brought you to studying Islamic law in these particular regions or in these, uh, you know, focusing on these particular texts, what sort of brought you to where you're at?
Speaker 2 00:08:41 Uh, in my case, uh, it's a very interesting question. Uh, I can address this question in multiple ways. Um, and, uh, recently I've been trying to write, uh, on this for, uh, for the high word Islamic law blog series on addressing some of the core concerns that brought me into studying Islamic law. And one thing that I found very interesting or, uh, is that I studied Islam. I have been studying Islamic law, uh, in Western epistemologies in the last, uh, 10 years or so when I started my PhD here in Leiden university in the Netherlands. Uh, but before that, I, I studied ancient Indian history for my ma and emphasis in India in new Delhi, Joellen, Hara university. But before this interregnum, I had, uh, studied Islamic law in, uh, uh, in a more traditional, uh, sense of the word, like in a, I could say a Medusa, but not necessarily.
Speaker 2 00:09:42 I was also, uh, following the, uh, quote unquote secular educators. This is a university education along with the religious disciplines, but then what I realized once I reflect on this, that I studied in that particular stream for 12 years, uh, studying Islamic law, but along with many other disciplines. And now once I reflect on, uh, the 12 year education, as well as the last 10 years, uh, not withstanding the three years of you could say an indirect numb without not much engaging with Islamic law. I realize that there's a huge gap in the ways in which Islamic law is, uh, approach. On one hand, there is this traditional in quote unquote traditional scholarship on Islamic law, uh, in the, uh, Muslim world. Uh, whereas, uh, it is completely disconnected from the ways in which the Western scholars have been studying Islamic law. But one thing that, uh, I personally find it interesting is that scholars who study, especially in diverse, uh, Islamic law, uh, has rarely, I have rarely, you know, taken into consideration the ways in which Islamic law developed, uh, in a place like Saudi Arabia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, uh, or Southeast Asia, which has the largest Islamic country in the world, you know, their histories of Islam or, uh, specifically Islamic law, uh, are rarely taken into account.
Speaker 2 00:11:14 So if you look at any classical studies or even textbooks on these topics, such as, you know, whether it's, you know, the early works of Joseph Shaw or, you know, why, or, you know, later, uh, textbooks engages with Islamic law in these areas, in the subcontinent one only from the 18th century on what as if, you know, when let's say when the British or the Dutch come into this scenario, or when the European come to this scenario and try to implement, uh, Islamic laws on, through something like Anglo Mohamad and law, or, you know, or, uh, in the Dutch tradition, the moral code and so forth and so forth. As you know, Islamic law did not exist in the subcontinent now for a time for the Europeans came. And so then sort of, you know, gap was something very interesting for me. So that's how I started to explore, uh, you know, what were the texts that were circulated in these regions before the Europeans came into this scenario?
Speaker 2 00:12:14 So I came across, uh, these texts that were written in Malabar, uh, in South Southwest India, as well as in, in ACCI and in Sumatra and many other places in 16th century, 17 century, 18th century. And some of them also going back a little bit earlier and all these texts, interestingly, are sort of connected. They are, of course, regionally produced in about part of the local regional expressions of Islam, but also very much part of the wider networks of the texts. So, you know, we cannot talk about Islamic law in these regions without addressing the long genealogy or the textual genealogies of the, uh, of the Islamic law. And that's how I would say, you know, I, uh, thought, you know, these two traditions, both scholarly, as well as, uh, uh, you know, uh, the, the actual practices of Islamic law to be connected, uh, in, uh, in, uh, uh, in whatever way I can, uh, do,
Speaker 1 00:13:17 You know, I love what you're both describing of these kinds of gaps between the academic study of Islamic law. And then what happens when you're in these communities that live and breathe with the law. Like, it's not just something that they're necessarily academically studying. Um, you know, for me, it was a very similar kind of journey in that. Um, you know, I mean, I, I grew up in a Muslim household, so law was always right, like part of, of your life. But when I, you know, sat down to kind of study it in a very sustained Wade was in the Academy. Uh, and then eventually I made my way to Egypt and then to Jordan and I was specifically interested in studying Hanafi law. Uh, and I was, again, struck very similar to what both of you are describing that for, you know, for the people there, this was a living tradition, right?
Speaker 1 00:14:01 And so a lot of the kind of ways that I had been studying Hanafi fix so far was not the ways in which they were thinking about it. And then I was noting the connections that they have. So the chef that I studied with in Jordan was connected to these Dale Bundy, uh, Hanafi scholars in Buxton and, and India and North India. And, you know, and, and, and, and he would sort of talk in this way where he'd be like, well, you know, those South Asian Hanafi is different from our kind of Hanafi is right. So it's like there were even differentiations between the kind of henotheism that moves from region to region. And so it's just really interesting to hear you both describe a very similar experience where it's like, there's the, you know, there's this way in which the academic study of Islamic law is doing, it has its own kind of conversation that often can be, you know, out of sync with what's happening in these communities.
Speaker 1 00:14:50 And it's important for us, uh, scholars to kind of recognize that. And nowhere does that, you know, we need to maybe think about bridging those gaps. Um, I wanted to ask, uh, you know, this question or this thing that both of you mentioned, which was about the language of the text texture that you're looking at, or the sort of, you know, multiple texts you're looking at seems to be that they're not just in Arabic. So if you could maybe just describe that a little bit for us, uh, and then maybe, uh, give us a sense of how they are connected to this Corpus of legal texts that are written in Arabic, but they're also writing in other languages.
Speaker 2 00:15:40 Okay. Uh, in my case, uh, what I mostly have been dealing with for my PhD, uh, where even though I wanted to incorporate a lot of non Arabic materials, uh, the 60 or 70% of the materials were still Arabic. Uh, so, uh, primarily because I was looking at the commentaries of Manata Taliban, so I was looking at one commentary by <inaudible> and then it's an indirect, uh, summary I would save of written in Malabar in 16th century, possibly one of his students is, uh, itself, uh, called Zeno <inaudible>. So his full Marine, and then, uh, it's, uh, super commentaries, you could say, uh, by one Japanese order from Java, Indonesia, uh, and then when Egypt color, both of them studied and worked together in, uh, in Mecca, in the 19th century. So, uh, these were my central texts, uh, and all these texts were written in, in, uh, Arabic.
Speaker 2 00:16:47 So, uh, these were like, I would say 60% of my ma uh, principle sources were in Arabic, but then I supplemented all these sources with additionally, uh, you know, contextually texts, so to speak in other historical materials. And these were very diverse. They were written in Malaya alum, uh, in <inaudible> and some of the translations, these were widely translated, especially for Marine. I mean, has it been tougher? They were transferred into European languages once we come to 19th century, uh, 18 and 19 century, uh, into Dutch, into French, into German, uh, and of course, English, uh, in the early 20th century. Uh, and then also along with it, like in this autistic context, uh, my Lai texts, and even though these are my life, they are like, you know, highly one text that I sort of closely studied and called. <inaudible> one of the earliest for context that we have from the, my Lai world, uh, written by, uh, written in, uh, in mid 17th century in bandages.
Speaker 2 00:17:53 Uh, so the text is primarily in my life, but then it has a lot of attorneys, uh, con uh, attorneys vocabulary into it, uh, and even more interestingly. And, uh, that is why it's very much part of the Indian ocean story. This very text in my line of first fifth texts in my life. So to speak was written by a good route. This caller who basically belong to the <inaudible> tradition, or, you know, so his family came from Yemen settled in Gujarat, and then he himself moved to, uh, uh, uh, bandits to Indonesia present day Indonesia, uh, following his uncle who had already, uh, was working there in the late 16th century. So all these sort of diverse sources sort of, you know, compliment the brain focus that I have been doing. And, and I strongly believe that you cannot do a history of Islamic law and, you know, without looking at this diverse number of sources. And as we all know that, you know, whenever, uh, someone has to do history of Islamic law, we always jump into, you know, Arabic as if that is the one resource. But as I mentioned in the beginning, like the majority of Muslims still live a then in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the languages such as Bengali or, uh, Urdu, uh, and my lie, uh, are, are equally important languages for the study of Islam, as well as more specifically history of Islamic law as well.
Speaker 1 00:19:27 Yeah. No, thank you for that. And it's raises, it raises this really great point about, you know, what do we count as a legal text, right. Also in that, uh, you know, there's a way in which a certain assumption about what is the language of Islamic law is also shaping our assumption about what constitutes something as a legal text, which we're also trying to kind of push us to think about.
Speaker 2 00:19:50 Yeah, definitely. Just before Matthew, I mean, I'll, I'll quickly add on, uh, on this, uh, particular aspect that, uh, the appointed, uh, uh, I believe that primarily, uh, something, uh, like Shafi school of law was successful, uh, in a place like Southeast Asia or even in the Swahili cause, uh, mainly because, uh, the scholars in this, you know, or the Islamic jurists or Jews consultants in the, in these regions were insisting on using the local languages in order to express Islamic flow, or in order to write about Islamic closer, especially in the, my life. Will we see that, for example, <inaudible>, uh, you know, when he was writing his <inaudible>, he, even though he was, you know, he belonged to an Arab family and he was educated and trained in the metabolism, the hijab still, he chose to write a Lang, uh, text in, in the melee and sort of like advanced or facilitated the, uh, you know, DVDs, so coalition or the very, so we will have Shafi is called afloat in this tradition. So Islamic law, in that sense, like the question of language was very important for many of these scholars.
Speaker 3 00:21:02 I think I had kind of a similar experience. I, you know, when I knew that I wanted to work on as long as I could on Africa, um, I had a, kind of a, a, a general approximation that, um, it would seem like a good idea to try to, uh, uh, learn and employ, uh, African languages. Um, and so I spent a bunch of years studying, uh, Pula Arma, and most specifically as a Pooler and in again, a, um, um, which saw ones where the 18th and 19th centuries, um, it really vibrant, um, intellectual landscape through, uh, a kind of political, uh, polity called, uh, the fruit of jello. So I thought that I would, um, you know, spend many years studying this language and, and, you know, really trying to focus on how Islam and law Islamic law is constituted and embedded. Um, and, uh, so with these non Arabic linguistics spaces, um, and had some success at that, um, but, but like, um, um, you know, I think a larger portion of my work now still winds up kind of returning to Arabic source material.
Speaker 3 00:22:12 And it's not, uh, I think it's, it's not my preference, but, um, you know, there are some, some source and kind of mythological constraints. Um, you know, that I've, I've, uh, I've encountered the first is that, um, you know, there's a very, not the, as, as you've said, like, there's a very clear distinction between the languages of Islamic law and the textual sources of them. And so, um, where I've found, um, more success at finding, like, for example, if I'm trying to trace the development or, um, the contestation, the debates, um, around and about Asana glass through the transmission of, of, of infiltrate, how do you, um, I've found a more productive way of studying that through ethnography, um, of learning circles and non-heritage languages. Um, and so, um, you know, you can experience, um, the ways in which the text is transmitted both glossed and, and there's this really kind of interesting philosophical debate about, you know, what is translation and what is gloss in this case, right?
Speaker 3 00:23:19 What is the commentary and what is a mere translation? And it often kind of feels like a subject of the normative judgment. Um, but, um, you can see the text being transmitted in real time and moving between multiple registers, not just Arabic and non Arabic, Arabic cooler, um, but, but a variety of different kinds of, um, um, local dialects, um, and, and embedded in local local systems of meaning. Um, and so that's very, very profitable. It's been exceedingly difficult, but very profitable. Um, in terms of, of doing it is sort of a more historical, uh, study on non Arabic source material. So in Africa, this is, I mean, I guess really conceptually everywhere, but in Africa, it's, it's been most famously, um, sort of brought under the umbrella of LGBT scholarship, um, essentially, uh, scholarship and non Arabic languages written in Arabic script. And so, you know, there, you know, in the foot of jello in the 18th and 19th century, we have really, really interesting even cooler <inaudible> manuscript sources for interesting stuff going on with law, but they generally are, if they're talking about Honeywell, they're not doing it in sort of the way that we would normally assume through a commentary diversification or other.
Speaker 3 00:24:31 Um, and so there, there are a few, um, but they're, they're pretty exceptional findings sort of commentaries and, uh, in sushi and Rocco, um, in Hess EMEA, Mauritania era, uh, essentially dialects of Arabic rather than, um, uh, different languages. Um, and we know that, you know, especially, uh, in Hausa and, and, and, um, uh, w what is present in Nigeria and even in Pula open Senegal and in what was the tutorial and get info to J-Lo and even food on a Siena. And, and, and what is present day Molly w you know, w you can find, um, marginalia, you can find really interesting notes written, um, in those languages on even something like, uh, um, those are kind of you, um, but, uh, I've not found as easily sort of an accessible, um, commentary, uh, written commentary tradition around, uh, around sort of this gold, gold standard combination of, of, of managers prudence. Um,
Speaker 1 00:25:33 I wanted to ask this question about, uh, audience, um, and like, do you have a sense in, you know, for both of you, in terms of the materials that you are looking at, you know, who was the sort of imagined audience? So the, you know, the original text that's put into verse, uh, supposedly to be memorized is this who was expected to memorize this or these texts that are being written in July or in Malayalam, right? Uh, are they being written to be read by a scholarly audience or a non scholarly audience? Cause I think our assumption is that Arabic is the language of Islamic law, because pretty much anywhere in any region, the scholarly community that would engage with these texts would know Arabic. So even though they speak their own local languages, the language they would sort of engage in, in terms of the legal text would be Arabic. But since you're seeing these different languages circulating here, I wonder if you can speak to the audience and whether that's connected to why there are these different languages.
Speaker 3 00:26:34 I think at least for me, an interesting way to think about it, um, is, um, you know, the ways in which, uh, being a student or a student of Islamic law, especially in, in, in, you know, pre-modern and colonial Mauritanian Sudana, and really through this hour on different of, of Africa, um, that, that notion of being a student, uh, looks very different than we would normally sown today. And so it doesn't just mean studying Islamic law and I'm a <inaudible> Hallowell or something like this, but it, but it also means, um, um, taking very seriously the theological and the legal and the moral commitments of, uh, Islamic law in someone's daily life. Um, and so in that sense then, um, it is not, uh, as surprising to imagine. And certainly when we see this in historical data, um, people reciting people who may not otherwise be committing their life to legal studies and what we would consider to be a formal way today, uh, taking these diversifications or even taking, uh, uh, something like <inaudible> itself, which is a very kind of unique, such a hyper distilled and condensed texts that even though it's prose, um, it is often almost has a, a kind of versifying quality because it is so condensed.
Speaker 3 00:27:54 It's something that is sort of more easily excited. You'll see people reciting the use and you, and we can read it, but people reciting these in markets, um, uh, in their homes, whether they're going about their daily life. Um, and I think that, um, simply because they're not doing so well in school does not mean that they're not a student that was on the claw, um, or that they're not taking this on the claw as sort of a central, um, kind of moral, ethical, uh, um, um, was value or space in their lives.
Speaker 2 00:28:22 I was saying, I completely agree with, uh, with what Matthew. And so the both of you mentioned, and also I absolutely love the way Matthew put some of this, you know, uh, uh, questions related to the audience. Uh, primarily what I see, you know, these texts can be studied, uh, both, uh, in the introductory, not only in introductory intermediate and advanced level, the same texts can be studied in, in, in multiple ways, right? So this is what, for example, Brindley MiSeq talks about, you know, uh, in the upper land Yemen where, I mean, I had to tell him when he studied immediately after the students, uh, study Koran, right? So they memorize it and it's part of the muffles that literate and then that, but then, I mean, hard is also an advanced text read is also studied by the students, not only at the very beginning of the, you know, career, or even before they, you know, pursue anything related to Islam or Islamic law, they still study the text, they memorize it and then, you know, they might fall, but also they, uh, it was the end of their career.
Speaker 2 00:29:31 They still study the same text. So, uh, and this, these were, you know, first and foremost, we can identify them as a textual community and many scholars have already, so identifying them as a textual community. So the constant engagement with the same text, through multiple ways of reading amassed, a different sort of audiences from different walks of the community. So some, you know, from very primary level, uh, some, you know, uh, in the advanced level, last one studying the same texts, but also some of these texts, the commanders and super commentaries were also hierarchies doing the same in similar ways. Some texts cuts across the boundaries of the audience. Some are like focus on something like, uh, in my case, <inaudible> is, uh, studied in a advanced level. So there are sort of hierarchies and the ways in which these texts are written and studied, but also it sort of directly relates to some of the discussions that we had, uh, with regard to the question of language, right?
Speaker 2 00:30:35 The very fact that, you know, many of these texts were translated and many of these, uh, pupil emphasized on the importance or the centrality of the language, whether it's malaria or, you know, with Tommy, they did, uh, that mainly because, uh, you know, they wanted to get across to a larger audience, you know, that, uh, not necessarily spoke the language, spoke Arabic or were familiar. And many of the orders, uh, wrote that in the profess, uh, when they've translated or when they wrote something in a, in a new, uh, in, uh, in an unfilled quote unquote unfamiliar language, uh, of, of Islamic law. So, uh, you know, that itself also shows, um, the wider audience they had in mind when they were writing the text. And also another aspect that Matthew also mentioned, uh, in passing about the glosses and the translations and the marginally, uh, and you know, all these are various forms in which different, uh, you know, layers of the audience engage with the text track. So if you already know, uh, Arabic very well, and then if you are an advanced scholar, like a specialized or a specialist scholar, then you don't need to translate, or you, you don't need to write, uh, you know, marginally or, uh, you know, in a different language. Many of these grocers were written in my case, I see in my Lai or Japanese, or in sometimes in, uh, in Tommy Roe and so forth. So the, uh, intermediate students would write these marginally in their languages because, you know, they, you know, those languages were more important.
Speaker 1 00:32:11 I know that's a, that's a really great point. Both of you are bringing up and it's sort of getting me thinking about, uh, this, uh, Islamic law class that I teach pretty much every year and, you know, do the sort of typical, like, okay, here's the historical development of the law here are the kind of different genres, right? Like, uh, colonial colonialism and its impacts and Islamic law, some contemporary issues in Islamic law. And, um, and we do some amount of sort of, you know, reading of, um, uh, you know, of substantive legal texts that have been translated into English. But, uh, you know, what you guys, what both of you are saying has got me thinking about, you know, that, that one element that I have not really emphasized to the students that's, you know, important to think about is how much Islamic law is part of people's every day pie to stick lines,
Speaker 2 00:32:55 Theoretically. Uh, one of the things that I have been trying to emphasize through my work, uh, the forthcoming book, which is interestingly titled, or at least like, you know, immediately relates to what I was mentioning the circulation of Islamic law, right? So it's titled Islamic law in circulation, and the ways in which these texts are circulated across the Indian ocean and Eastern Mediterranean regions. So despite of these texts being circulated in, in such a broad canvas, geographical canvas, uh, when the orders something that I wanted to emphasize, even though they were writing commentaries or super commentaries, or abridgments, uh, they're engagements where we're very much regionally located, or at least as a student of history, I would like to see them as part of regionalization process or a vernacularization process. Of course, they're dealing with the larger, you know, textual COPAS that has, you know, certain that as a tradition or genealogy that goes back, uh, the centuries, but still like, you know, when never be, is writing a text, uh, in 13th century in Damascus, it is very much part of, you know, and product of that particular regional context, as well as like a commentary when you've been out, you've been a hazard, is writing a commentary on Manheim, the Taliban in 16th century, Mecca, you know, Maka itself is a major actor.
Speaker 2 00:34:24 So the region itself is a measure actor, even though he's dealing with a text that is 300 years, you know, uh, older before him and civilization in the post-classical day, real tradition is something that I sort of would like to emphasize. I have been wanting to emphasize. And, um, therefore, you know, variations, um, in the regionalization process or this trans regionality sort of merge, uh, in the,
Speaker 3 00:34:54 Yeah, I see him in my own work. I think something pretty similar. Um, w w when I think about kind of regionalization or different regions that, uh, Islamic cloth circulates in Africa, um, you know, I try to think about it, um, both physically, so as a space that students, uh, and scholars go to when they meet and they study, um, and, and oftentimes they'll return back home, um, but also sort of discursively right. So, so the types of commentary, uh, traditions or lineages, um, that move across Africa and often take, um, you know, very particular, um, sometimes kind of normative, uh, evaluations of meaning. So in a physical sense, then I work on the Maliki world and Sonic Africa. Um, and so, you know, regionally the two, you know, huge, enormous centers and kind of looming shadows are Egypt and Morocco. Um, and they, you know, they, they, they come up in really interesting ways, um, by, uh, centers and in kind of, you know, regional spaces, um, that are not those, uh, but that's sort of, um, within at least the secondary source literature sort of exist in their shadows.
Speaker 3 00:36:03 Um, and so kind of a common trope that, that you'll often see, um, in Sudan and in different ways of Mauritania, um, are, uh, you know, when a scholar, or as, as proof of, of a local scholars, uh, erudition, um, or sort of their, their miraculous, or sort of divinely ordained insight into law, the lots of go to these other places. Um, and they'll go to these other places in, in, in really kind of fantastic terms. And they will show, um, their, their sort of intellectual acumen of superiority over these other regions. These are these other regional centers. Um, and so, you know, really kind of a common theme in, in lots of, of things, biographical dictionary is a great scholar going to Egypt and essentially beating a Gypson scholars in some type of legal debate. Um, there's a super famous, I think 16th century example of, of a scholar going, uh, to Egypt and then getting in a long debate with, um, some of the leading Maliki scholar and in Cairo at the time.
Speaker 3 00:37:03 And so thoroughly trouncing him in the legal debate, but the scholar takes off the shawl and, and retrieves the flag of his family and gives them to the legal scholars. We'll take these home as proof, uh, of, of, of, of your skill and insight. So that's sort of an, in a regional sense, but also kind of in, in, in, I guess, a discursive or sort of a commentary kind of, uh, kind of tarial sense, you'll see, um, different, uh, regional, uh, lines of transmission. And those, when we talk about different sort of regional lines of transmission, um, of commentaries of the video, for example, um, they often, uh, times they, they usually come out, um, very specific kind of methodological commitments. Um, and so in Mauritania, and you will see, um, uh, different regional centers in Mauritania that teach the Heleo differently and that, uh, cite, um, uh, or explain sort of those differences, uh, sometimes historically accurately and sometimes on a, kind of a more aspirational the way that, um, they are the products of, uh, the Timbuktu tradition, the Malian tradition, um, or the Fessy tradition or the Korean tradition.
Speaker 3 00:38:11 Um, and it becomes sort of a really interesting question then as a scholars to try to figure it out, what does that actually mean in practice? Um, because as, as you know, we all know, you know, transmitting a legal text or writing a commentary about a work of law is, uh, never just simply reproducing what you studied under a teacher. It's never just reproducing what you have transmitted to someone else. Um, and so there's going to be necessarily some interventional attacks. There's going to be necessarily some deviation, um, from, um, you know, the, the equipments of, of, of, you know, the, the, the object of commentary. But I think that's, that's, um, uh, something that I try to think about or focus on. Um, and then I guess the last point is, is, you know, both within Sudan, but like also, you know, in Mauritania, um, regionally there are specific, uh, legal questions that often arise more frequently.
Speaker 3 00:39:07 Um, so in Mauritania, for example, um, even commentaries of the video will look different than commentaries in Sudan or Guinea, uh, or different parts of Islamic Africa, um, because they will privilege or feature, um, questions that are more salient, um, uh, to the people that are reading them and writing about them in the times when Mauritania and these questions are often about caravans they're on a Friday prayer, they're about to catch they're about, you know, very particular issues to, to oftentimes Badu society in the Western Sahara in the 19, 19 and 17th centuries. Um, and those questions will not look the same, um, in the 19th century Sudan, for example.
Speaker 1 00:39:45 Yeah, yeah, no, that's a, I really appreciate this point that you're bringing up, um, uh, Matthew about the, the kind of relation between what is seen as the center. And what's seen as like, you know, what is influenced and who is the influencer, uh, and you know, this is very much this, um, way in which, uh, you know, the story that you're describing of the, you know, uh, that scholar going to Egypt, right. And beating the Egyptian scholar. Right. And so you can see the ways in which what we have made into the periphery speaks back to the center, that these are kinds of, you know, relations across these regions. Uh, you know, that cannot so easily be understood as one is the center and is influencing right. The legal discourse that is happening, uh, you know, further down South. I really appreciate, um, you know, you, you kind of calling our attention to that. Um, and in relation to that, I wanted to ask you Mahmoud, if you see something similar in the kind of Indian ocean connections that you're noting, uh, you know, in the, in the Shafi, uh, legal tradition that you're looking at, are there these kinds of assumptions about center and periphery, or how are people kind of, uh, you know, influencing each other across these regions?
Speaker 2 00:40:51 Oh, definitely. Uh, because, uh, many, you know, something that I wanted to emphasize is that, uh, now, you know, the Shafii school of law for example, is, uh, mostly practiced in the Indian ocean coast. So Indian ocean literal right in Southeast Asia and coastal South Asia, and then also is to Africa and so forth. So, uh, when this call is right, you know, from this regions, um, texts in, uh, in <inaudible>, they didn't want to, you know, sort of take everything as was imported to them. So they, uh, reformulated and reshaped, uh, many the, uh, uh, laws or rulings within these, uh, traditions. So using like, you know, sometimes using the, uh, <inaudible> or, or, you know, or less valid opinions over, you know, most valid ones. And so for, so like the prioritization or the economy and politics of, you know, prioritizing particular opinions or what the standard, uh, standpoints of the school, uh, is a sort of strategy that many of these orders accommodated, uh, while, you know, contextualizing or were naturally raising Islamic law or Chavez, particularly in this context, uh, in order to assert their own voices in the, in the larger, uh, traditions of, you know, uh, writing commentaries.
Speaker 2 00:42:23 So we do see that kind of, you know, exercises, uh, from many of these orders where they try to contextualize, you know, and by contextualizing speaking back to the, you know, particularly I would give us a brief example of this, uh, <inaudible> in 16th century, we'll possibly study it with his teacher even has little high to me. And then in this text, we repeatedly see the reference where he says Felicia cleaner or, you know, in opposite to my teacher. So that is a very important, uh, you know, uh, example of, you know, where an Indian scholar, you know, tries to, you know, articulate his, uh, independent opinions, um, that is most applicable for Indian context where Muslims were, even though they were very, you know, numerically, uh, so much, but still like, you know, minority community and politically without, uh, you know, having control over the region. So, you know, this sort of expressions of dissent, um, uh, uh, important elements in which, uh, again, like, you know, the periphery speaking back to the center of Islamic law. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:43:36 Saudi to do it, it just move your, your great comments, sort of admit me, um, um, realize, uh, or, you know, want to reiterate too, that sort of, um, you know, despite the fact that, um, Africa, for example, and then presumably many other parts of the Islamic world, um, have often been regarded as, uh, uh, periphery to some kind of, some type of, kind of nebulously defined Islamic center, um, within studies on the club. But, you know, also by, by oftentimes by Arabs themselves, um, you know, in rare cases, um, you know, what I find, um, uh, African legal scholars, um, considering, you know, viewing themselves as existing and working on law from some type of marginal status from some, some type of periphery, and maybe this was kind of implicit in what we were talking about. Um, but, you know, despite, um, sort of being called was on a periphery, uh, rarely is this the case, um, by those that are living and working in teaching and producing or practicing Islamic law, uh, in them.
Speaker 3 00:44:41 And so I think, you know, these, these stories and these kinds of literary themes, um, of, of, you know, going to Egypt or going to Mecca and Medina, or, you know, becoming the prize to teacher of, uh, you know, the, the Moroccan Soltani or something, um, you know, that these are kind of some first of ways of, you know, flipping the center and periphery, um, you know, flipping, you know, the assumptions of what could a black African legal scholar do, or what could use a Harlem legal scholar do, um, in kind of the otherwise. Um, so, you know, bastions of the Arab intellectual heritage
Speaker 2 00:45:16 Brief addition to what Matthew said, this sort of, uh, you know, what I also noticed is that, uh, the reimagination of the sender, you know, uh, where the sender itself, the Islamic hurt lands are no longer the important centers. So after many of these students went back, went to Mecca, Medina Cairo, and came back in 15th century or 16th century and so forth. And then, uh, you know, they started their own centers of Islamic learning. And then this became the immediately accessible centers for many Indian or Chinese or Indonesian and, you know, centers. And, uh, once we come to 19th and 20th century, many of students, you know, from these regions go wants to further saying that, uh, you know, what do Arabs know about Islam? The real Islam is, you know, in our regions, like in India or Indonesia and so forth. So the reimagination of the sender and, you know, reboot of Mecca, you know, in many, you know, uh, whether it's in my liar world or in Gujarat and so forth, we see that kind of free imagination. So in that sense, you know, Islamic law or of Islamic law is in, in several ways, a multi-directional Janie is not, you know, something that is a Hussein. Uh, for example, in her work on politics of Islamic law, she emphasizes that, uh, it's not, uh, an export from the middle East to the rest of the, uh, Islamic world. Rather it's a multidirectional journey in which African, uh, Asian Arab, you know, uh, scholars sort of, you know, came together, uh, in the, in the long process of circulation circulating Islamic law.
Speaker 3 00:46:57 That's a great point. It reminds me of kind of one last story, one anecdote that always is, uh, very funny to me. Um, there, there's this, uh, kind of story about, uh, you know, the ways in which these regional centers, um, you know, not only are, you know, physical places that, that legal scholars, uh, meet and study and students study under them, um, but also sort of, um, are, are constructed in ways that, um, um, sort of Vive for, uh, a, you know, somewhat dubiously defined kind of, uh, center of, of authenticity within the legal school. Um, and so there's, there's the story that once upon a time, a Maliki legal, so sorry, a Moroccan, uh, Maliki legal scholar, jurist, uh, is in Cairo and in meats and Egypt, mannequin legal scholar, and the Egyptian says, uh, you, you, you Moroccans, you, you move out of it.
Speaker 3 00:47:52 You don't, you don't ever, you know, you don't write enough on law. Like, what do you, what, why, why is your supposedly legal school, right, as some evaluation of methodology and then hierarchy and Canon, why is your understanding of amount of ethical school? But I think it's better than ours. We're the ones that are producing legal texts, and we're the ones that are doing commentaries, and we're the ones. And the Moroccan says, well, of course we don't, we, we're not writing much because we're so busy correcting all of your errors. You're the ones that are writing these legal texts, but they are just riddled with mistakes. And so we're the ones doing the, how ashy, and we're the ones doing the super glosses on the legal texts that you write, um, that are not understanding, uh, the Medica method correctly. Um, and so it's, it's always really funny to see how, how, you know, uh, kind of notions about authenticity and also ideas of, of, uh, you know, regional superiority are repurposed in ways that you would not normally expect.
Speaker 1 00:48:49 Yeah, that's such a great point. I, you know, it's like whenever I teach sort of on the pre-modern Islamic context in, you know, in, in, in my classes, it's always so interesting to me to see students having their geography reoriented, right? Because you can see how we have come to see your up in North America as the center and all other places as the peripheries. And then all of a sudden, you're looking at this world now where, you know, those places are not really even part of the conversation, but also that, you know, the, the, the kind of, you know, Afro Asian world is so deeply interconnected. And it's very hard to kind of be like, this is the center that is just influencing, or that's where knowledge is traveling out from right to other places. You can see that it's all sort of circulating, uh, you know, and, and going back to the center.
Speaker 1 00:49:40 So, you know, you'll see these South Asian scholars who are going to Mecca to study, right. And, and then coming back and, you know, or, or they become themselves, central teachers in Mecca. Right. And, and all of these ways, it's, it's a, you know, and, and similar, you know, you're describing similarly Matthew in the context of, uh, you know, Islam in Africa. So it's, it's really great to kind of, you know, I feel like part of the power of history and the study of history is that it gets us to question what has become so natural to us today. Uh, and, and, uh, you know, and, and question these ideas of Centra and periphery. So thank you for, for, you know, your very, very rich comments in this direction.
Speaker 0 00:50:19 Thanks for listening to this episode of history speaks. I'm very grateful to Matthew and mold for speaking with me today about their research. You can find more information about their work, as well as the history speak
[email protected] backslash podcast, and please stay tuned for our next episode.
