Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  • Cited by 2
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
October 2020
Print publication year:
2020
Online ISBN:
9781108779494
Subjects:
Islam, Religion, Theology

Book description

Sharī'a is one of the most hotly contested and misunderstood concepts and practices in the world today. Debates about Islamic law and its relationship to secularism and Christianity have dominated political and theological discourse for centuries. Unfortunately, Western Christian theologians have failed to engage sufficiently with the challenges and questions raised by Islamic political theology, preferring instead to essentialize or dismiss it. In Law and the Rule of God, Joshua Ralston presents an innovative approach to Christian-Muslim dialogue. Eschewing both polemics and apologetics, he proposes a comparative framework for Christian engagement with Islamic debates on sharī'a. Ralston draws on a diverse range of thinkers from both traditions including Karl Barth, Ibn Taymiyya, Thomas Aquinas, and Mohammad al-Jabri. He offers an account of public law as a provisional and indirect witness to the divine rule of justice. He also demonstrates how this theology of public law deeply resonates with the Christian tradition and is also open to learning from and dialoguing with Islamic and secular conceptions of law, sovereignty, and justice.

Reviews

The book develops the idea that we can learn as Christians and Westerners from the idea of law in Islam. And at the same time when we start to learn from Islam, this way of learning can invite Muslims to rethink their own attitude towards modernity and secularism. This move is really brilliant and of highest originality. I am not aware of any work which follows this path for the subject of law, especially not in this depth and with this scrutiny.

Klaus von Stosch - Head of the Centre of Comparative Theology and Cultural Studies at the university of Paderborn, Germany

‘… represents an invitation to several potential audiences. Ralston urges Christian theologians to rise to the challenge of a 'theo-political engagement' with shari¯’a … the book appeals to Muslims to imagine a postcolonial future for Islamic law.’

Stanley H. Skreslet Source: Journal of Bible and Theology

‘Ralston’s aims in this book are ambitious. His scope is broad. His learnedness impressive. His use of footnotes is commendable … [This] book serves as a fresh model for comparative theology, offering deep learning of the religious other on a particular issue in order to shed light on theological issues from one’s home tradition.’

Anna Bonta Moreland Source: Scottish Journal of Theology

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
×

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.