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4 - Between Sharīʿa and Human Law: Ibn Rushd and the Unwritten Law of Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2019

Karen Taliaferro
Karen Taliaferro
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
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Summary

Chapter Four builds an Islamic theory of natural law from Ibn Rushd’s (Averroes’) Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Talkhi? Kitab al-Kha?aba li Aris?u). This chapter provides original exegesis on Ibn Rushd’s text, particularly those passages concerning what Ibn Rushd describes as an unwritten law of nature (sunan ghayr maktuba fi ?abi?at al-jami?). It expounds upon what I argue is a theory of natural law in the commentary that is largely consonant with Aristotelian natural justice as well as thoroughly Islamic in such a way that it can, and even ought to, inform contemporary understandings of shari?a. This chapter contains the most in-depth discussion of the relationship between revealed religion and natural law, as well as the most detailed proposal for a natural law epistemology.

Keywords

IslamAverroesnatural lawAristotlefalsafashari?a
Type
Chapter
Information
The Possibility of Religious Freedom
Early Natural Law and the Abrahamic Faiths
 , pp. 83 - 103
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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