Islamic legal study ordered itself by textual logic, not by curriculum design

Evidence

The process of learning always began with the study of the Quran, the original text of the law (indeed the only original text, the only text which could not be read in some sense as the interpretation or modification of an earlier writing). The student then moved on to the hadith, the collections of sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad which interpret and extend Quranic doctrine, and then on again to the major commentaries upon the Quran and to the other subjects dealing with its interpretation, such as the art of its recitation and the study of variant readings. From there one moved on to the studies related to the reading of the hadith, such as the biographies of the transmitters, then to the principles of theology (usul al-din), then to the principles of legal interpretation (usul al-fiqh), then to the divergent interpretations among the different schools of law, and so on according to a sequence given in the reading and interpretation of the law, which was the nature of the art being studied. Though the choice of secondary texts might vary, there was no need of a syllabus or curriculum. The order of learning disclosed itself, by the logic of interpretation, in the order of the texts. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 289

Categorization

• XREF: Directly contrasts with the curriculum/timetable model of modern schooling Mitchell critiques in the wider book; useful against ‘The Bias of Communication’ and frameworks of institutional time.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how did the absence of formal curriculum reconcile with professional gatekeeping and accreditation in practice?