The al-Ghazali Enigma and Why Shariʿa is Not Islamic LawBy Haifaa G. Khalafallah

Abstract

This book is the fruit of over two decades of research by the author on conceptual discussions related to shariʿa and fiqh. When Khalafallah was working on her doctoral thesis in the late 1990s at Georgetown University’s history programme, she became acutely aware of the extent of the negative impact Western media and academic literature had on contemporary Muslims by glossing shariʿa as ‘Islamic law’ (pp. 2–3). The title of the book, Why Shariʿa is Not Islamic Law, clearly states her main argument that shariʿa is nothing but a rulemaking procedure of Islam which defies binary characterizations such as secular and religious or modern and traditional. Al-Ghazali of The al-Ghazali Enigma is not the medieval Sufi philosopher, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) but Muhammad al-Ghazali (1917–1996) who is remembered as a controversial faqīh and star preacher of twentieth-century Egypt. By combining the intellectual biography of Muhammad al-Ghazali with post-2011 discussions on religion and politics, she strives to demonstrate that shariʿa-derived rulemaking is the living tradition of Islam, which remains highly relevant to contemporary Muslim lives.