Local Tradition and Imperial Legal Policy under the Umayyads: The Evolution of the Early Egyptian School of Law

Mathieu Tillier (1, 2, 3)

1 OM - ORIENT ET MÉDITERRANÉE : Textes, Archéologie, Histoire
2 SU UFR Histoire - Sorbonne Université - Faculté des Lettres - UFR Histoire
3 OM-IM - Équipe Islam médiéval

Joseph Schacht considered that Egypt did not develop any original school of law during the second/eighth century, and that its early jurists followed the Medinan tradition. However, in the early Abbasid period, Egyptian jurist al-Layth b. Saʿd supported an autonomous Egyptian legal tradition, based on the jurisprudence of the Companions who had taken part in the conquest. This suggests that Egypt followed an original legal tradition during the Umayyad and the early Abbasid periods, a tradition that was challenged, then replaced, by other schools in the first half of the ninth century CE. In order to understand the peculiarities and evolution of this Egyptian legal tradition, this article propose a preliminary study of the relationships between Egyptian jurists and other regional normative systems within the Islamic empire. I argue that the evolution of the Egyptian "school" is related to imperial Umayyad policy, especially to the legal agenda of Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.

Keywords: Egypt Umayyads legal schools madhhabs jurists fiqh judiciary qadis; Egypt; Umayyads; legal schools; madhhabs; jurists; fiqh; judiciary; qadis

Domains: History

Mathieu Tillier. Local Tradition and Imperial Legal Policy under the Umayyads: The Evolution of the Early Egyptian School of Law. Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World Part I - Political and Administrative Connections, Cambridge University Press, pp.131-168, 2022, ⟨10.1017/9781009170031.006⟩. ⟨halshs-03897456⟩