Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ Roundtable

Mohammad Fadel (Professor of Law, University of Toronto) and Connell Monette (Vice President of Academic Affairs, American Academy Casablanca) organized a PIL Forum Roundtable on the recent publication of al-Muwaṭṭaʾ – Recension of Yahya b. Yahya al-Laythī (d. 234/848) by Mālik b. Anas, distributed through Harvard University Press. This translation is based on the recently published Royal Moroccan Edition of the Muwaṭṭaʾ (Casablanca: Maṭbaʿat al-najāḥ al-jadīda, 2013/1434), and was commissioned by the Moroccan Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs. A team of Moroccan translators, under the supervision of Mohammad Fadel and Connell Monette, editors, working over the course of several years, prepared the translation.

Below are the essays contributed to the Roundtable on the ISLAMICLAWblog. Leading scholars which scholars comment on various aspects of the translation; some engage substantively with particular topics or themes in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, others comment on the translation and its style, and some combine elements of both.

Part of the Online Companion for Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, the Royal Moroccan Edition: The Recension of Yaḥyā Ibn Yaḥyā al-Laythī.

 
The Handmaiden’s Tale
By Kecia Ali, Professor of Religion and Chair of the Religion Department at Boston University
 
Mālik, the Muwaṭṭaʼ and Sunni Identity
By Jonathan Brown, Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University
 
Zakāt, Wealth Tax and Extreme Inequality
By Mahmoud El-Gamal, Professor of Economics and Statistics, and Chair in Islamic Economics, Finance, and Management at Rice University
 
Al-Shāfiʿī’s Recension of Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ
By Ahmed El Shamsy, Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago
Medina, the Mashriq, and the Maghrib in the recension of Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʼ by the Cordoban Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Laythī
By Maribel Fierro, Research Professor at the National High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in Madrid (Spain)
The Virtues of Translation
By Jocelyn Hendricks, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and History at the University of Alberta
 
Who Are We Writing for When We Translate Classical Texts?
By Marion Katz, Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU
Journey of the Muwaṭṭaʾ in different periods of the history of South Asia: Shāh Walīyullāh’s Pursuit of Mālik
By Ebrahim Moosa, Professor of Islamic studies in Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and Department of History.
 
Debates on free will and predestination in the 12th century Islamic West: Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī's Kitāb al-Qabas fī Sharḥ Muwaṭṭaʾ Mālik Ibn Anas
By Delfina Serrano-Ruano, PhD Tenured Researcher at the National High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in Madrid (Spain)
Which is Superior: Medina or Mecca? The Muwaṭṭaʾ on the Unique Status of Medina and Its Scholarly Community
By Mariam Sheibani, Research Fellow at Harvard Law School