The study of Islam’s legal origins covertly justifies Westernizing its law

Evidence

An important and thickly constructed narrative is the entire Orientalist subfield that “investigates” the origins of Islam, essentially showing that the “heavy debt” Islam owed to previous legal cultures and “civilizations” (Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Jewish, even Persian) is commensurate with modern Islam’s legal deficiency (namely, deficiency of the Shariʿa), which can be cured only by accepting and adopting the legal systems of the inheritors of these ancient civilizations, who happened to be represented by the modern Europeans. It is not readily detectible to the uncritical eye that a subfield which pretends to study legal history and so-called legal transplantation in the sixth and seventh centuries AD is driven by an ideology that is directly—though surreptitiously—connected with an ideological system constructed to justify the Westernization of Islam’s legal system and consequently Islam itself. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 779 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Understanding Islamic ethical formation would chiefly benefit modern Western scholarship itself.; Orientalist studies of Islam’s legal origins covertly justify Westernizing Shariʿa — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 779; Western study of Islamic history moved from credulity to critical method to total rejection — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1963 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Orientalist studies of Islam’s legal origins covertly justify Westernizing Shariʿa #corroborates (1.00) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 779