From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Mon 11 Nov 2002 - 03:38:05 GMT
Interesting. I'll look for the whole code. I am not an expert on the shari'a
so we'll be exploring it together. You posed a fascinating question, on the
memetic origins of Islamic law. I can make some inquiries about some good
sources on the sharia. I know there has been a HUGE volume of materials
written on it by Muslim jurists, and that out of these debates over time
evolved some four principal schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Advocates of
each still flourish today and continue to provide the grist for debate.
Issues of modernization, relations with the non-Muslim world (which had to
change as the Muslim world lost its pre-eminence), science, and the changes
that occurred in society as individual communications began to be changed by
such things as the telephone and TV, movies and easy travel - all these have
challenged the traditional Islamic schools and caused great intellectual and
social struggling.
These struggles were paralleled in the West, in such events at those leading
to the Magna Carta, the Reformation, Inquisition, various internecine and
religious wars, censorship and martyrdoms. The parallels are quite striking,
and there is much unfinished dispute going on in both the Muslim world and
the West.
One of the parallel themes that has struck me is the arrogance that empires
have, even as they decay. The Roman, Bourbon, Holy Roman, and Ottoman
empires are good examples. They were on their last legs, while their rulers
acted as if they could still control everything. They didn't, in Kathleen
Townsend's now famous words (well, at least here in Maryland!), 'see it
coming'. I imagine we could find this meme, of impregnable and supercilious
superiority, at play in the last days of each of these empires. And it
would be interesting to compare it to the language of present day powers. In
interesting memetic research project, no?
Cheers,
Lawry
-----Original Message-----
From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf Of
Grant Callaghan
I've just read the complete code and found it bore little resemblance to the
description of it by the Canadian Judge who summaraized it in the previous
message. I'll try to send it to you as a file. It still has a lot of value
and I need to find a discussion of the sharia to make a decent comparison.
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