Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-rvbq7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T22:30:16.332Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kissing Hands and Knees: Hegemony and Hierarchy in Sharfa Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Brinkley Messick
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two categories of Muslim legal texts are utilized in Yemen. In the methodological literature I examine conceptions of common sense and consensus, and the relation of knowledge and ignorance. In the applied literature, I review egalitarian and hierarchical themes. The hegemonic qualities of such texts derive from their appropriation of ordinary wisdom and from the shifting polyvocality of the texts themselves.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 22 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Law and Ideology , 1988 , pp. 637 - 659
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 The Law and Society Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The development of my thinking about law has been stimulated by participation in the Amherst Seminar. I have benefited from comments on an earlier draft of this paper by Sally Merry and Barbara Yngvesson, and by Stefania Pandolfo and Uday Mehta, and helpful comments at a later stage were provided by members of the seminar, especially Adelaide Villmoare and Christine Harrington, and by two anonymous LSR reviewers.

References

ABU SHUJA', Ahmad. (1859) al-Mukhtasar, Arabic text and French trans. S. Keijzer. Leiden: E.J. Brill.Google Scholar
al-AKWA', Isma'il (1980) al-Madaris al-Islamiyya fi al-Yaman. Damascus: Dar al-Fikr.Google Scholar
ANDERSON, J.N.D. (1959) Islamic Law in the Modem World. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
ASAD, Talal (1986) The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. Occasional Papers Series. Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University.Google Scholar
BAKHTIN, M.M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas.Google Scholar
BOGGS, Carl (1984) The Two Revolutions: Antonio Gramsci and the Dilemmas of Western Marxism. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
ECO, Umberto (1986) Travels in Hyperreality, trans. Weaver, William. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
DERRIDA, Jacques (1976) Of Grammatology, trans. Spivak, G.C.. Baltimore, MD.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
FIORI, Guiseppe (1973) Antonio Gramsci. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
FOUCAULT, Michel (1980) The History of Sexuality, Vol. I. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
GEERTZ, Clifford (1983) Local Knowledge. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
GEERTZ, Clifford (1979) “Suq: The Bazaar Economy in Sefrou,” in Clifford Geertz, Hildred Geertz, and Lawrence Rosen, Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
GEERTZ, Clifford (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
GERHOLM, Tomas (1977) Market, Mosque and Mafraj. Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Al-GHAZZI, Ibn al-Qasim (1894) Fath al-Qarib, Arabic text and French trans. L.W.C. Van Den Berg. Leiden: E.J. Brill.Google Scholar
GORDON, Robert W. (1984) “Critical Legal Histories,” 36 Stanford Law Review 57.Google Scholar
HODGSON, Marshall (1974) The Venture of Islam, 3 Vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IBN KHALDUN, 'Abd al-Rahman (1968) al-Muqaddima, 3 Vols., trans. Monteil, Vincent. Beirut: Librarie du Liban.Google Scholar
al-JUWAYNI, Imam al-Haramayn (n.d.) al-Waraqat, in al-Qasimi, J., ed., majmu' mutun al-usuliyya. Damascus: Maktabat al-Hashimiyya.Google Scholar
MERRY, Sally Engel (1985) “Concepts of Law and Justice among Working-Class Americans: Ideology as Culture,” Legal Studies Forum 59.Google Scholar
MESSICK, Brinkley (forthcoming) “Just Writing: Paradox and Political Economy in Yemeni Legal Documents,” Cultural Anthropology.Google Scholar
MESSICK, Brinkley (1987) “Subordinate Discourse: Women, Weaving, and Gender Relations in North Africa,” 14 American Ethnologist, 210.Google Scholar
MESSICK, Brinkley (1986) “The Mufti, the Text and the World: Legal Interpretation in Yemen,” 21 Man n.s. 102.Google Scholar
MOTTAHEDEH, Roy P. (1980) Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
al-MURTADA, al-Imam al-Mahdi Ahmad (1972) Kitab al-Azhar. n.p.Google Scholar
al-NAWAWI, Muhy al-Din. (1882, 1883, 1884) Minhadj al-Talibin, 3 Vols., Arabic text and French trans. L.W.C. Van Den Berg. Batavia.Google Scholar
al-NAWAWI, Muhy al-Din. (n.d.) Minhadj al-Talibin. Cairo: Dar Ihya' al-Kutub al-'Arabiyya.Google Scholar
RAHMAN, Fazlur (1968) Islam. Garden City, NY: Anchor.Google Scholar
ROSEN, Lawrence (1984) Bargaining for Reality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
ROSEN, Lawrence (1980-81) “Equity and Discretion in a Modern Islamic Legal System,” 15 Law & Society Review 217.Google Scholar
ROSEN, Lawrence (1979) “Social Identity and Points of Attachment: Approaches to Social Organization,” in Clifford Geertz, Hildred Geertz, and Lawrence Rosen, Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
ROSENTHAL, Franz (1970) Knowledge Triumphant. Leiden: E.J. Brill.Google Scholar
SAID, Edward (1978) Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
SANTOS, SANTOS Boaventura de (1977) “The Law of the Oppressed: The Construction and Reproduction of Legality in Pasargada,” 12 Law & Society Review 5.Google Scholar
SERJEANT, R.B. (1984) “The Caliph 'Umar's Letters to Abu Musa al-Ash'ari and Mu'awiya,” 29 Journal of Semitic Studies 65.Google Scholar
Al-SHAFI'I, Muhammad (1961) al-Risala, trans. Khadduri, M.. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Al-SHAWKANI, Muhammad 'Ali (1969) Rasa'il. Madina: Maktabat al-Salafiyya.Google Scholar
Al-SHAWKANI, Muhammad 'Ali (1348 A.H.) al-Badr al-Tali', 2 vols. Cairo: al-Sa'ada.Google Scholar
SPIVAK, Gayatri Chakravorty (1987) In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen.Google Scholar
WEBER, Max (1946) “Class, Status, Party,” in Gerth, H. and Mills, C.W., eds., From Max Weber. New York: Oxford, pp. 180–195.Google Scholar
WENSINCK, A.J. (1971) A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Traditions. Leiden: E.J. Brill.Google Scholar
WILLIAMS, Raymond (1977) Marxism and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
YNGVESSON, Barbara (1985) “Legal Ideology and Community Justice in the Clerk's Office,” 9 Legal Studies Forum 71.Google Scholar
ZIADEH, F.J. (1957) “Equality (Kafa'ah) in the Muslim Law of Marriage,” 6 American Journal of Comparative Law 503.Google Scholar
ZYSOW, Aron (1984) The Economy of Certainty: An Introduction to the Typology of Islamic Legal Theory. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Middle East Studies, Harvard University.Google Scholar