Al-Muwatta: the first formulation of Islamic law (review)

Reviews 151 Interest in the historical project waned with the unproved poUtical situation after 1464, only to revive with the flurry of diplomatic activity in the mid 1470s. This time, Ianziti says, the results in the form of Giovanni Simonetta's Commentaries, the most important humanistic historiographical achievement from fifteenth-century Milan, were momentous. The patient investigations of eariier chapters now serve to iUuminate both the context and the distinctiveness of Simonetta's work. Again there is a detailed analysis of the relationship between the work and its sources and the process of 'deformation' which turned history into propaganda. A further chapter explores the fortunes of the Commentaries, especially their significance as the first important work of history to have been published by means of the newly-invented printing press. Their translation into Tuscan by Landino raises the question of their influence on Machiavelli, on his reflections about new princes and virtu and even on his approach to politics in general. One minor but pleasing feature of this impressive piece of textual analysis and historical reconstruction is that Ianziti's occasional, lively translations and colloquial language have survived the editorial pen of the Clarendon Press, so that Minuti's Compendio is described as the expression of a gut reaction, 'a kind of collection of Sforza gripes' (p. 86). W . G. Craven Department of History Australian National University Imam Malik ibn Anas, Al-Muwatta: the first formulation of Islamic law, trans. A. A. Bewley, London, Kegan Paul, 1989; cloth; pp. xxxviii, 465; R. R. P. £35.00. In al-Muwatta' Malik (A.D. 713-796) encapsulated Islamic jurisprudence as it had evolved in the Prophet's City, Medina, to his day. Based on the reported Tradition (sunna) of the Prophet, Medinan attested practice, and his own considered opinion, Malik's method, or school of jurisprudence, spread in the Middle Ages, particularly in the Mediterranean Islamic lands, including Islamic Spain and Sicily. It still predominates in North and West Africa and the Sudan. Recognised as epoch-making by contemporaries, al-Muwatta"s place in Islamic law has proved perennial. A model in its literary structure, al-Muwatta' demonstrates, among other things, that, unlike strict hadith scholars, early Muslim jurists did not always feel the need to cite full chains of transmitters known to them. It also shows the flexibility and humiUty of such jurists and the subordination of certain areas of the law to the ruler. For example, on a matter pertaining to jihad, MaUk says: 'we do not have a known reliable command about this except the ijtihad [considered opinion] of the [ruler]' (21.11). It also dlustrates how Islamic Law 152 Reviews combines religious and civd matters, and always with moral emphasis. In this edition, twenty chapters are on aspects of worship, five on lawful diet, ten on proper dress, grooming, hygiene and personal behaviour, five on judging, evidence and penal law, one on jihad and the law of nations, three on freeing of slaves, and five on aspects of business law, both commercial and agricultural. Other chapters cover miscellanea The translator has ddigently, and generally competently, rendered the whole text, keeping names of transmitters and the frequently repeated pious formulae invoking peace on the Prophet. Unfortunately, however, the translation occasionally reflects laterrigid,somewhat misleading, notions of Islamic law rather than the freshness and flexibility of the original. The Introduction, by a learned religious magistrate, Shaykh Mubarak of Abu Dhabi, is confined to a traditional account of Malik and his work. The translator does not indicate her method or edition(s) used. The unfamiUar reader has to plunge into this complex text with only limited help from the glossary and index, both overloaded with cross-references. The tendency to retain many Arabic terms without translation, even in some chapter headings, is a further impediment for the uninitiated. Many of these may be familiar to the Muslim reader, of course, but al-Muwatta' is important for other readers. For example, students of comparative law would find some parallels with Roman-Byzantine or western medieval notions and practices, but a medievalist interested in the Islamic parallel to the commenda contract of business sharing would have to look up Qirad. The current division...