Issam Eido will lecture on ʿĪsā b. Abān – a 9th-century Ḥanafī legal scholar who studied with and influenced leading Ḥanafī scholars of his period. He studied with Abū Ḥanīfa’s student Al-Shaybānī, and the well-known jurist Jaṣṣāṣ quoted him extensively in ways that offer further insight into the shape of early Ḥanafī law than has previously been reported. Most notably, amid the contested debates about the validity of ḥadīth as a reliable source of law, Ibn Abān constructing new criteria for measuring the authenticity of ḥadīth based on legal canons (qawāʿid fiqhiyya), and analogical reasoning (qiyās) as valid bases for legal interpretation and derivation. This talk will explore those concepts.

He will be joined by Professor Ahmed El Shamsy (University of Chicago, Associate Professor, Division of the Humanities, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations).

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