Saharan Jurists, Islamic Legal Corpus and Scholarly Debates,^15th to^19th century

Abstract

From the^15th century onwards, the Saharan West became a major center of Islamic legal thought. The activities of Muslim jurists led to the formation of variegated intellectual and textual traditions spreading Islamic literacy and law among local communities in both sedentary and nomadic contexts. In my contribution, I will provide an overview of authors, texts, and topics through which we can observe the progressive constitution of an autonomous tradition of juridical reasoning within the framework of the post-1400 mālikī school of Islamic law. As my paper intends to demonstrate, the particularities of life in the desert required jurists to adapt and, often, to reinterpret the school's normative and legal models while at the same time adhering to the principle of following the doctrine laid down by the great authorities of the past.