Return to Coronet Books main page

Deciphering the Meaning of Revealed Law
The Surushian paradigm in Shi'i epistemology

By Ashk Dahlén
January 2002
Uppsala University Press
ISBN: 91-554-5189-6
384 pages
$62.50 paper original

---

This Ph.D. thesis analyses the major intellectual positions in the philosophical debate on Islamic law that is occuring in contemporary Iran. As the characteristic features of traditional epistemic considerations have a direct bearing on the modern development of Islamic legal thought, the contemporary positions are initially set against the established normative repertory of Islamic tradition. It is within this broad study of a living legacy of interpretation that the context for the concretisations of traditional as well as modern Islamic learning are enclosed. In an attempt to begin to define a supposed Islamic modernity, this study suggests that Islamic postmodernism has paradigmatic relevance and reflects a thoroughly transitional phenomenon within Shi'i speculation on divine law.

Islamic Law; Epistemology
Studia Iranica Upsaliensia, No. 5