Felicitas Opwis, Ethics and Analogy (Qiyās) in 5th/11th Century Islamic Legal Theory

Abstract

This is a review of Felicitas Opwis's Ethics and Analogy (Qiyās) in 5th/11th Century Islamic Legal Theory (Brill, 2025). Opwis examines the transformation in understandings of the ratio legis (ʿilla) of analogical reasoning (qiyās) during the dynamic eleventh century, distinguishing between a "sign model," which treats the ʿilla primarily as a semantic link between a ruling and its applicable circumstances, and a "motive model," in which the ʿilla also serves to justify the rule's underlying purpose. Opwis characterizes the shift toward the motive model as an "ethical turn" reflecting the growing role of the concept of benefit (maṣlaḥa) in legal reasoning. The book traces this development through the thought of five prominent scholars—al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Abū Zayd al-Dabūsī, Abū Isḥāq al-Shirāzī, and Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī—devoting one chapter to each. Farahat commends Opwis's meticulous and respectful treatment of the interplay between law, ethics, and theology, while noting that her deliberate exclusion of purely theological (kalām) discussions leaves certain questions, particularly regarding conceptions of divine intent, unaddressed.