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Research Group | Israel Institute for Advanced Studies

Research Group

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Ella Landau-Tasseron

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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ella is a professor in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests are: early Islamic history; pre- and early Islamic society, political structure and institutions; Islamic tradition/Ḥadīth; Islamic historiography; Jihad.
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Maribel Fierro

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Spanish National Research Council
Maribel is a professor in the Department of Arabic Studies at CSIC, Madrid. Her research interests are: history of al-Andalus and the Islamic West; Islamic law (Mālikī school); heresy in Islamic societies; early Islam; Muslims in Europe.

Law and the State in Classical Islam

[RG #77] Law and the State in Classical Islam

September 1999 - February 2000

Organizers:

Yohanan Friedmann (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Nurit Tsafrir (Tel Aviv University)

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The study of Islam has been at the cutting edge of Islamic studies in recent years. The development of Islamic law beyond the Qur’ānic stage, the rise of the schools of law (madhābib) and their geographic spread, the relationship between the rulers and the jurists, the amount of freedom enjoyed by the jurists in the development of the law – all these are being subjected to intensive scrutiny.

An important question is the development of Islamic law from the Qur’ānic layer in early Islamic history, through the books of the 8th and 9th centuries, to the great compendia of later periods. It was accepted until recently that the early Muslim jurists derived the law from the Qur’ān and the prophetic tradition (hadith) during the first 250 years of Islamic history by way of individual reasoning. According to this view, the freedom to exercise individual reasoning gradually shrank and the jurists relied more and more on the decisions of the predecessors. These decisions were collected in large compendia and gradually acquired unquestionable authority. At the end of this process, in the 10th century CE, the right of individual reasoning disappeared totally and Islamic law lost its ability to adapt itself to the changing historical circumstances. If this theory is correct, a book of law written, for instance, in the 12th century cannot be used as a document reflecting the social and legal situation in the period in which it was written, but rather the legal tradition which prevailed in the 9th century and has remained stagnant ever since.

Recently, various scholars began to question the validity of this description and to argue that the “gates of individual reasoning” never closed and Islamic law has never lost its flexibility or ability to develop. The study of this question is a challenge for scholars of Islam. Islamic law is perceived as immutable because it is believed to represent the divine will. It therefore stands to reason that later jurists, even if they wanted to introduce changes into the law, invested much effort to present their views as identical with those of their forebears, or, at least, as derived from them. This is the reason why books of law from different periods appear very similar to each other. In order to discern changes which may have occurred in a certain field of law, it is imperative to examine numerous sources from different periods and compare them to the compendia of tradition and law from the 8th and 9th centuries. If we learn that Islamic law continued to develop throughout Islamic history, then books of law written in later centuries are of much greater value than that ascribed to them so far: they constitute historical documents which can shed new light not only on the development of law, but also on the social situation of the areas and periods in which these books were written.

This is one of the fields in which we will conduct research. Another is the study of the development of Islamic law in various areas of the Islamic world in different periods, as well as in the differences between the various schools of law on specific issues.

 

 

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Gregory E. Sterling

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University of Notre Dame
Gregory is a professor in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. His research interests are: Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins, especially Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and Luke-Acts; Hellenistic moral philosophy.
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Daniel R. Schwartz

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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Daniel is a professor in the Department of Jewish History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are: Jewish history and historiography of the Second Temple period; history of Judaism and the impact of Hellenism; priestly Judaism and early Christianity.
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David Satran

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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
David is a professor in the Department of Comparative Religion at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Adele Reinhartz

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McMaster University
Adele is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University. Her research interests are: the Gospel of John and the history of the Johannine Community; "Jesus" films; the use of the Bible in film; biblical narrative.
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Tessa Rajak

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University of Reading
Tessa is a professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Reading. Her research interests are: the Septuagint in its historical context; Jewish inscriptions of the Greco-Roman diaspora; the Fourth Book of Maccabees; Josephus.
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Hermann Lichtenberger

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Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
Hermann is a professor in the Institute for Ancient Judaism and the History of Hellenistic Religions at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. His research interests are: New Testament in its Jewish and pagan context; Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.
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Jan Willem van Henten

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University of Amsterdam
Jan is a professor in the Department of Theology & Religion at the University of Amsterdam. His research interests are: early Judaism and early Christianity; concepts of matyrdom in Jewish and Christian sources; apocalypticism; the Bible in the twenty-first century.
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John G. Gager

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Princeton University
John is a professor in the Department of Religion at Princeton University. His research interests are new interpretation of the apostle Paul.

From Hellenistic Judaism to Christian Hellenism

[RG #81] From Hellenistic Judaism to Christian Hellenism

September 1, 2000 - June 30, 2001

Organizers:

David Satran (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Daniel R. Schwartz (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

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No problem has so stubbornly accompanied the investigation of Second Temple period Judaism and of early Christianity -- and the nature of the relationship between the two -- as that of "Hellenism". How deeply were both Judaism and Christianity in their formative stages influenced by the larger cultural and religious streams of the Greco-Roman age? To what extent did the phenomenon of "Hellenism" -- in its varied literary, social and political expression -- shape the defining characteristics of Jewish and Christian belief and practice in the period between Alexander and Constantine? What role did the medium of the Greek language and of Hellenistic cultural forms play in the translation of ideas and allegiances from Judaism to Christianity during the early centuries of the Common Era?

Our group will focus on precisely this problem and these questions, addressing the pendular tendency of modern scholarship to wholeheartedly affirm or passionately deny the hellenization of early Judaism and Christianity. The general orientation of recent research has been toward the Palestinian Jewish background of the early Church, with a clear proclivity for sources preserved in either Hebrew or Aramaic. In light of this trend, we will attempt to reassess the role of Greek-speaking, Hellenistic Judaism as a fertile context for Christian origins.

 

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Joseph Schlessinger

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NYU Medical Center
Joseph is a professor in the Department of Pharmacology at NYU Medical Center. His research interests are: The mechanism of action of receptor tyrosine kinases and analysis of the signaling pathways they activate.