Muslim Identities - An Introduction to Islam Second Edition - Aaron W. Hughes
6. Legal Developments and the Gradual Emergence of Sunni Islam
Muslim Identities - An Introduction to Islam Second Edition - Aaron W. Hughes
Aaron W. Hughes [+]
University of Rochester
Aaron W. Hughes is the Dean’s Professor of the Humanities and the Philip S. Bernstein Professor in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester. His research and publications focus on both Jewish philosophy and Islamic Studies. He has authored numerous books, including Situating Islam: The Past and Future of an Academic Discipline (Equinox, 2007); Theorizing Islam: Disciplinary Deconstruction and Reconstruction (Equinox, 2012); Muslim Identities: An Introduction to Islam (Columbia, 2012); and Abrahamic Religions: On the Uses and Abuses of History (Oxford, 2012). He currently serves as the editor of the journal Method and Theory in the Study of Religion.
Description
This chapter focuses on the emergence and subsequent development of Islamic law, something that increasingly came to define the emergence of the other major denomination in Islam, Sunnism. It examines the rise of a class (the ulama) to determine the law (sharia), before exploring the sources used to determine this law and the various legal schools that arose it.