New from Indiana University Press:
Jews and Islamic Law in Early 20th-Century Yemen (2014) by
Mark S. Wagner (
Louisiana State University). A description from the Press:
In early 20th-century Yemen, a sizable Jewish population
was subject to sumptuary laws and social restrictions. Jews regularly
came into contact with Islamic courts and Muslim jurists, by choice and
by necessity, became embroiled in the most intimate details of their
Jewish neighbors’ lives. Mark S. Wagner draws on autobiographical
writings to study the careers of three Jewish intermediaries who used
their knowledge of Islamic law to manipulate the shari‘a for their own
benefit and for the good of their community. The result is a fresh
perspective on the place of religious minorities in Muslim societies.
A few blurbs:
"[A]rticulate[s]
brilliantly the complexity of Jewish-Muslim interaction through a series
of fascinating and hitherto unexplored court cases and scholars. Wagner
convincingly illustrates that these two religious communities were far
from being mutually exclusive, but rather were enmeshed in each other’s
lives in the most remarkable and unexpected ways, and in a real sense
mutually constitutive." —Bernard Haykel, Princeton University
"In beautiful prose, Mark Wagner explores the complex contours of Yemen's shari’a-based
juridical system, considering how individual Yemeni Jewish women and
men navigated this legal order and the larger social orbit of Yemeni
society. Moving ably between Arabic and Hebrew sources, and between rich
case studies and weighty conceptual questions, Jews and Islamic Law in Early 20th-Century Yemen will be prized by scholars of Jewish Studies and Middle East Studies alike for its erudition, clarity, and originality." —Sarah Abrevaya Stein, UCLA
More information is available
here.
