Law and Education in Medieval Islam

This volume, focusing on legal education and its place in classical and medieval Islamic civilisation, comprises eight articles written in honour of Professor George Makdisi (1925-2002), seven of them by his former students at the University of Pennsylvania (William Granara, Sherman Jackson, Gary Leiser, Joseph Lowry, Christopher Melchert, Devin Stewart, and Shawkat Toorawa). One article is by George Makdisi's friend and Islamicist colleague Bernard Weiss, and the Preface by George Makdisi's friend and colleague at the University of Pennsylvania, the European medievalist Edward Peters. George Makdisi was one of the great scholars of Islamic law, theology and education, as well as a historian of Islam's institutions and practices of learning. He taught at the University of Michigan from 1953-59, at Harvard University from 1959-73, and at the University of Pennsylvania from 1973 until his retirement in 1990. In 1993 he received the Giorgio Della Vida Award for Excellence in Islamic Studies. Contents: Preface: The Trail and Scent of Learning ( Ed Peters ); Colleges of Law and the Institutions of Medieval Sunni Islam ( Joseph Lowry, Devin Stewart and Shawkat Toorawa ); Nomos kai Paideia: A Bibliography of George Makdisi's Publications ( Shawkat Toorawa ); Discipline and Duty in a Medieval Muslim Elementary School: Ibn Hajar al-Haytami's Taqrir al-Maqal ( Sherman Jackson ); The Etiquette of Learning in the Early Islamic Study Circle ( Christopher Melchert ); Islamic Education and the Transmission of Knowledge in Muslim Sicily ( William Granara ); A Portrayal of 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi's Education and Instruction ( Shawkat Toorawa ); The Madrasah and the Islamization of Anatolia before the Ottomans ( Gary Leiser ); The Doctorate of Islamic Law in Mamluk Egypt and Syria ( Devin Stewart ); The Reception of Shafi'i's Concept of Amr and Nahy in the Thought of his Student al-Muzani ( Joseph Lowry ); Medieval Islamic Legal Education as Reflected in the Works of Sayg al-Din al-Amidi ( Bernard Weiss ).