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In this innovative study, Kecia Ali examines the forefather of the second largest of the four principal Sunni schools of jurisprudence, the Shafi'i. Gifted poet and outstanding Islamic Scholar, Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi''i (767-820) firmly rejected the use of common sense in Islamic legal rulings, arguing that the only valid sunnah (or prophetic religious traditions) were directly handed down from Muhammad by Hadith. Kecia Ali is Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston University. She is a world authority on Islamic jurisprudence, and author of Sexual Ethics and Islam: Femin

Abstract
In several of the scores of romance novels she published between the 1980s and the early 2000s, bestselling American author Nora Roberts limns whiteness by deploying black characters as sacrifices or sidekicks. In her recent novels (2016-19), villainous white characters who express racist sentiments become scapegoats, obscuring racism's broader structural and cultural dimensions. At a time when discrimination within romance publishing and award-giving has gained attention, it is vital to explore how the genre continues to center white readers and white identities, even while explicitly condemning racism.

In our imperfect world, rape happens frequently but nearly no one publicly defends the legitimacy of forcible or nonconsensual sex. So pervasive is deference to some notion of consent that even Daʿish supporters who uphold the permissibility of enslaving women captured in war can insist that their refusal or resistance makes sex unlawful. Apparently, one can simultaneously laud slave concubinage and anathematize rape. A surprising assertion about consent also appears in a recent monograph by a scholar of Islamic legal history who declares in passing that the Qurʾan forbids nonconsensual relationships between owners and their female slaves, claiming that "the master–slave relationship creates a status through which sexual relationsmay become licit, provided both parties consent." She contends that "the sources" treat a master's nonconsensual sex with his female slave as "tantamount to the crime ofzinā[illicit sex] and/or rape." Though I believe in the strongest possible terms that meaningful consent is a prerequisite for ethical sexual relationships, I am at a loss to find this stance mirrored in the premodern Muslim legal tradition, which accepted and regulated slavery, including sex between male masters and their female slaves.

This pioneering study of the social and political lives of Muslim women has shaped a whole generation of scholarship. In it, Leila Ahmed explores the historical roots of contemporary debates, ambitiously surveying Islamic discourse on women from Arabia during the period in which Islam was founded to Iraq during the classical age to Egypt during the modern era. The book is now reissued as a Veritas paperback, with a new foreword by Kecia Ali situating the text in its scholarly context and explaining its enduring influence

Cover -- Table of Contents -- Letter from the General Editor -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- A Note on the Text -- Notes to the Introduction -- EPISTLE ON LEGAL THEORY -- Chapter on the Modalities of Legislative Statements -- Chapter on the First Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter on the Second Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter on the Third Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter on the Fourth Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter on the Fifth Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter Explaining What Is Revealed in the Book as Unrestricted, and Intended as Unrestricted, but Also Partly Restricted -- Chapter Explaining What Is Revealed in the Book, the Apparent Meaning of Which Is Unrestricted but Which Combines the Unrestricted and the Restricted -- Chapter Explaining What Is Revealed in the Book, the Apparent Meaning of Which Is Unrestricted but Which Is Intended in Its Entirety as Restricted -- Chapter on the Category of Statements in Which Context Indicates the Meaning -- The Category in Which the Wording Indicates the True Meaning Rather Than the Apparent Meaning -- Chapter on What Is Revealed as Unrestricted and Which Prophetic Practice in Particular Indicated Is Intended as Restricted -- Explanation of God's Imposition in His Book of the Obligation to Follow the Practice of His Prophet -- The Obligation from God to Obey the Prophet, Paired with Obedience to God and Mentioned Separately -- Chapter on God's Command to Obey God's Emissary -- Chapter on God's Statement to His Creation Concerning Having Obliged His Emissary to Follow What Was Revealed to Him -- The Evidence He Gave Concerning His Emissary's Following What He Was Commanded to Do, His Emissary's Being Guided, and His Emissary's Guidance of Those Who Follow Him -- The Beginning of Abrogation

The Epistle on Legal Theory -- Frontmatter -- Letter from the General Editor -- About this Paperback -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- A Note on the Text -- Notes to the Introduction -- The Epistle on Legal Theory -- Chapter on the Modalities of Legislative Statements -- Chapter on the First Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter on the Second Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter on the Third Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter on the Fourth Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter on the Fifth Kind of Legislative Statement -- Chapter Explaining What Is Revealed in the Book as Unrestricted, and Intended as Unrestricted, but Also Partly Restricted -- Chapter Explaining What Is Revealed in the Book, the Apparent Meaning of Which Is Unrestricted but Which Combines the Unrestricted and the Restricted -- Chapter Explaining What Is Revealed in the Book, the Apparent Meaning of Which Is Unrestricted but Which Is Intended in Its Entirety as Restricted -- Chapter on the Category of Statements in Which Context Indicates the Meaning -- The Category in Which the Wording Indicates the True Meaning Rather Than the Apparent Meaning -- Chapter on What Is Revealed as Unrestricted and Which Prophetic Practice in Particular Indicated Is Intended as Restricted -- Explanation of God's Imposition in His Book of the Obligation to Follow the Practice of His Prophet -- The Obligation from God to Obey the Prophet, Paired with Obedience to God and Mentioned Separately -- Chapter on God's Command to Obey God's Emissary -- Chapter on God's Statement to His Creation Concerning Having Obliged His Emissary to Follow What Was Revealed to Him; The Evidence He Gave Concerning His Emissary's Following What He Was Commanded to Do, His Emissary's Being Guided, and His Emissary's Guidance of Those Who Follow Him -- The Beginning of Abrogation -- Abrogation Indicated Partly by the Book and Partly by Prophetic Practice -- Chapter on the Obligation to Pray That the Book and Then Prophetic Practice Indicate to Be Obviated by Reason of an Excuse; and Concerning Him Whose Prayer Is Not Counted as Disobedience -- Abrogation Indicated by Prophetic Practice and Consensus -- Chapter on Obligations That God Revealed in the Form of Explicit Texts -- Obligations Established by Explicit Texts and in Regard to Which God's Emissary Provided a Parallel Practice -- Obligations Established by Explicit Texts in Regard to Which Prophetic Practice Indicates That He Intended Something Restrictive -- Obligations Expressed in General Terms -- Concerning Alms -- Concerning the Pilgrimage -- Concerning Waiting Periods -- Concerning Women Unlawful to Marry -- Concerning Unlawful Kinds of Food -- Concerning That from Which Widows Must Abstain during the Waiting Period -- Chapter on Problems Affecting Hadith-Reports -- Another Instance of Abrogation -- Another Instance -- Another Instance -- Another Instance of Legal Disagreement -- Inconsistency in Narration in a Way That Differs from What Preceded -- Another Instance Considered Contradictory, but Not by Us -- Another Instance Considered a Case of Legal Disagreement -- Another Instance of Legal Disagreement -- Concerning the Major Washing for Friday Prayer -- Prohibition for a Reason Indicated by a Reason Given in Another Hadith-Report -- Prohibition for a Reason That Is Clearer Than That in the Preceding Discussion -- Prohibition for a Reason Resembling the Preceding Discussion in One Way, and Differing from It in Another -- Another Chapter -- An Instance That Resembles the Preceding Point -- Description of God's and His Emissary's Prohibitions -- Chapter on Knowledge -- Chapter on the Uncorroborated Report -- Authority Confirming the Uncorroborated Report -- Chapter on Consensus -- Chapter on the Confirmation of Analogical Reasoning and Legal Interpretation; When Analogizing Is Necessary and When Not; Who May Perform Analogies -- Chapter on Legal Interpretation -- Chapter on Subjective Reasoning -- Chapter on Legal Disagreement -- Chapter on Inheritance Shares -- Chapter on the Disagreement over the Grandfather -- Opinions of the Companions -- The Status of Consensus and Analogy -- Notes -- Glossary of Names and Terms -- Bibliography -- Further Reading -- Index of Qurʾan Passages -- Index -- About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute -- About the Translator -- The Library of Arabic Literature