Introduction

Joseph Schacht opened his classical work on Islamic law in 1950 with the following statement:

Obviously, classical theory to Schacht meant Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafiʿi’s (d. 820) theory about the system of four sources, due to his basic interest in the history of legal hadith. He considered it classical, apparently, because to him this theory is unequalled and unsurpassable in mastery and competence. Before exploring whether the central point in al-Shafiʿi's theory was defining the four sources, let me first consider the significance of Schacht’s characterisation of al-Shafiʿi's theory as “classical.” It is pertinent to note that the term “classical” generally refers to Greek and Roman traditions alluding with admiration to perfection, completeness, and beauty in these cultures. Lately, it has also been used to distinguish between modern and ancient cultures and civilisations; antiquity is not necessarily used in a negative sense. However, one is not sure whether Schacht uses the term in the sense of admiration, because in an article about Islamic law written almost within a decade of the book cited above, he employed the term “classicism” as a synonym for fossilisation, decline, and immobility (Schacht 1957, 141). Furthermore, with reference to Islamic law, the attribute “classical” in modern settings may also mean that it is not adaptable to modern needs because in this theory Islamic law is religious and sacred in its source. This perception of classical was probably born in the wake of colonial modernism that defined non-Western cultures, especially legal traditions, in terms of decadence. Those cultures were declining and could not be reformed; they could only be replaced with modern and more advanced legal systems.