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

doi:10.1017/9781009170031.006

Chapter 5 - Local Tradition and Imperial Legal Policy under the Umayyads: The Evolution of the Early Egyptian School of Law

from Part I - Political and Administrative Connections

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2022

Mathieu Tillier

Edited by

Jelle Bruning ,

Janneke H. M. de Jong and

Petra M. Sijpesteijn

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Summary

The community of Egyptian jurists is best known from the second half of the eighth century, under the first Abbasids onwards, when their interactions with other provinces increased. The community’s most famous scholar, al-Layth b. Saʿd (d. 175/791), an early Abbasid jurist, maintained a correspondence with his alter ego in Medina, Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795), with whom he debated legal doctrine. However, Egyptian jurists before 132/750 have been little studied.*Joseph Schacht maintains that Egypt did not develop any original school of law, and that its jurists followed the Medinan legal tradition. His conclusions, however, are not based on any in-depth study of the Egyptian milieu during the Umayyad period, but rather on the later writings of al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820).1 Yet, as I have shown in a previous study, al-Layth b. Saʿd both proclaimed his respect for the Medinan legal school and supported an autonomous Egyptian legal tradition, based on the jurisprudence of Companions who had taken part in the conquest of the province.

Type: Chapter
Information: Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World
From Constantinople to Baghdad, 500-1000 CE
, pp. 131 - 168

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009170031.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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