REBELLION AND THE LINGUISTIC PRACTICE OF MUSLIM JURISTS

Technique is the art of the jurist. Technique is the specialized method by which the jurist expresses normative values, instrumentalist objectives, and functionalist goals. The methodology of the jurist is the product of a juristic culture which develops and legitimates a specialized method of discourse. The juristic culture itself reflects the cumulative institutional experiences and commitments of innumerable collaborators preserved in specialized books, continually reinforced, and revived in the minds of the practitioners within that culture. The juristic culture is defined, somewhat, by unitary or uniform institutional and ideological commitments, but most of all it is defined by a specialized code, namely, a technical language. The technique of the jurist relies on language as its primary tool by which power is asserted, legitimated, or challenged. Language is the main tool by which a jurist attempts to negotiate reality, produce domains of truth, and frustrate claims of truth or reality. Because of the centrality of language, it is imperative to examine the linguistic practice of the jurists. A meaningful understanding of the law, its functions or purposes must be based on a study of the details, or what some have called the microdiscourses, of the linguistic practice. It is primarily through the medium of language that juristic culture defines, perpetuates, and reforms itself.