© 2003 by University of Manchester
COMPARING JEWISH AND ISLAMIC LAW
University of Manchester
This article reviews Neusner, Sonn and Brockopp's Comparing Religions Through Law: Judaism and Islam and Judaism and Islam in Practice. A Sourcebook. It highlights the methodological choice between an ‘external’ approach, imposing a clear tertium comparationis, but at the risk of violating understandings within each tradition, and an ‘internal’ approach, where the comparison might lack a common analytical basis. In jurisprudence, a ‘moderate external point of view’ has come into favour, and this broadly accords with the approach in these volumes. In this context, the authors' approach to ‘disproportions’ between the two traditions and their respective ‘unique categories’ (‘enlandisement’, jihad), and their relationship to political history (viewed primarily internally), is discussed, as is the use of the orality/literacy spectrum as an external criterion. This leads to consideration of the nature of authority within the respective systems, and to the ‘religious’ character of the content of the rules.