The Role of the Biographer in Constructing Identity and Doctrine: Al-ʿAbbādī and his "Kitāb Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ al-shāfiʿiyya"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/jais.4605Abstract
This paper explores the role of the biographer in compiling a biographical dictionary, focusing on al-ʿAbbādī’s (d. 458/1066) work on the Shāfiʿī ‘school’ of law. The paper argues that al-ʿAbbādī straddles a fine line of faithful transmission of school doctrines and artful arrangement of the materials in order to shape the identity, authority structures, and doctrines of the school according to his vision. To highlight al-ʿAbbādī’s role in constructing the identity and authority structures of the school the paper focuses on three areas: first, how al-ʿAbbādī lays out his vision of the school in the entry of the eponym of the school by delineating the areas of law that distinguish al-Shāfiʿī from other founders of schools of law; second, how al-ʿAbbādī deals with contradictory positions held among members of the school; third, how he gives the school of law also a theological identity (Ashʿarism) by discussing such topics as free will, the createdness of the Qurʾān, and the definition of faith (īmān). The paper details the author’s range of editorial hints and techniques of presentation that guide his audience to the ‘correct’ Shāfiʿī doctrine. It presents reasons why al-ʿAbbādī takes recourse to these measures and points to the effects of his presentation of school doctrines.
Downloads
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
For content published in editions of JAIS before 2002, copyright belongs to the author. Content published between 2002 and 2017 is copyrighted by Edinburgh University Press (reproduced on FRITT with permission). Text and other material published in these journal volumes can only be shared and republished with written permission from the rights holders.
Starting from 2017, the content published in JAIS is - unless otherwise is stated - licensed through Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Through this licence content can be copied and distributed but also remixed, transformed and built upon for any purpose under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit to the creators of materials published in JAIS, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notice: No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
Authors who publish in JAIS accept the following conditions:
Author(s) retains copyright to the article and give JAIS right to first publication while the article is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0. This license allows sharing the article for non-commercial purposes, as long as the author and first publishing place JAIS are credited. The license does not allow others to publish adapted versions of the article without the author's permission.
The author is free to publish and distribute the work/article after publication in JAIS, as long as the journal is referred to as the first place of publication. Submissions that are under consideration for publication or accepted for publication in JAIS cannot simultaneously be under consideration for publication in other journals, anthologies, monographs or the like. By submitting contributions, the author accepts that the contribution is published in both digital and printed editions of JAIS.
