2003, 2008
Leor E. Halevi
- Assistant Professor
- Texas A&M University
![Picture of Leor E. Halevi](https://www.acls.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/220447FB-F6A4-DB11-8D10-000C2903E717.jpg)
Abstract
Abstract
This project examines historically Muslim legal perceptions of non-Muslim commodities, from the rise of Islam to the present day. Many experts on Islamic law earned their livelihood as merchants and thus appreciated the benefits of cross-cultural trade. Yet they worried that through such trade they would expose their bodies and communities to impurity, and so proposed ideological restrictions to regulate this commerce. This resulted in a productive tension in Islamic legal thought between an economic interest in porous communal boundaries and a religious interest in social exclusivity. As Muslim jurists reflected on non-Muslims and their worldly goods, they also sought, in different ways and in different historical circumstances, to define an Islamic social identity.