Sharia recently became a hotly debated subject. Archbishop of England made a statement at the middle of many statements, that has given the opportunity of Islamic law and Shari to be discussed and debated by westerners and some times the discussion apparently was taken out context. It is, as I believe, a fact that Sharia, Fiqh in its early stages got established and developed in the wide area of the world, mainly where Roman law was dominant.
Roman law (the law applied in Byzantine Empire was Roman law) developed in the Beirut, Istanbul (Constantinople) centuries long before Islam. Fiqh was established, acted upon and developed to answer the needs of people embracing Islam in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Central Asia, Iran, Egypt, and North Africa where Roman law was dominant for centuries. Actually the relations between these two laws were made subject to theories and researches, as Fiqh’s relation with Judaic tradition and law was done. There was a Roman law text in Arabic at 5th Century AD applied in Syria where Islamic Law later applies, the relation between these two laws also made specifically subject to comparative studies not too long age, unfortunately in Turkish only. Actually the researcher compared the Arabic text of this Syrian Roman Codex, edited by German orientalists more than a century ago, with al-Majmu fi 'l-Fiqh by Zaid b, Ali (circa d. 120 AH), which was edited By Griffini, of which original manuscript is in Milan, Italy. The comparison is made in terms of systematic, subjects, forms and contents.
Abu Hanifa himself was not really an Arab, lived out side of Medina and Mecca that is in Kufa, city south of Iraq, and Baghdad. His grave is in Baghdad which is not well taken care of nowadays. He is the one who really established Fiqh, Sharia, I may say, as codified by his teaching, his two students, among thousands, Imam Abu Yusuf and Imam Muhammad al-Shaibani are the ones who wrote down and took notes and put into book forms the teachings of their ustad. These two taught and transferred their ustad's teaching to Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafi'i. So Shafii is the student of the students of Abu
Hanifa.
A few decades ago we have had strong orientalists like L. Massignon, Ch. Pellat (France), Bertold Spuler (Germany), M. Watt (Edinburgh, UK) and Bernard Lewis (England, USA). Before there were strong caliber orientalists like Carl Brockelmann, I. Goldziher, Snouck-Hugronje, and Wensinck, one of the important piece of Islamic literature being “Concordance” edited by his team, in whose time also first edition of Encyclopedia of Islam in French, English and German is produced. Annemarie Schimmel (Germany, US), Graef and Hans Kruse and Walter Hinz (Germany).
Now second edition of EI is continuing to be published only in English and French. But the fact is that not many of the orientalists were specialized in Islamic Jurisprudence and Fiqh area; there were a few of them only in the West, definitely not many in America. American universities were not that much interested in producing and educating specialists in Islamic Jurisprudence. Perhaps they were more pragmatists in approach. One needs to appreciate Brockelmann's GAL, Dr. Sezgin's GAS, also Concordance de La Tradition Musulmane (Mu'jam al-Mufahras li-Alfaz al-Hadith al-Nabawi), all being published by Brill at The Haque (Lahaye, Leiden). These are extremely important manuals Islamic Scholars can not afford not referring to, if we intend to raise research oriented western standard-type academic scholars among Muslim scholarship. George Sarton's chapter on Muslim Period in his magnificent book Introduction to the History of Science also deserves to be noted at this point. Read More
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