Dr Haidar Hobballah has contributed a chapter entitled “The Role of Ethical Ijtihād in Deriving the Sharīʿa: A Comparative Analysis of Theories on the Relationship between the Revealed Text and Moral Reason” to a newly published volume, Religious Thought and the Concepts of Ethics, Historicity, and the Public Sphere between the Absolute and the Relative, issued by the Omani Cultural Club in Muscat, Oman.
The volume examines, first, the relationship between ethical reason and the revealed legal text, and second, the relationship between historical context and the religious text within the broader framework of absolutism and relativism. It aims to offer a further analytical contribution to the development of Islamic legal reasoning (ijtihād) and its underlying methodologies, arguing that incorporating both ethical reason and a historical perspective has the potential to reshape our understanding of the religious text’s ethical and behavioural guidance.
The volume originates from the proceedings of a research symposium held in February 2025 in Muscat, Oman, which brought together a number of scholars and academics. It comprises 120 pages in royal octavo format and was edited by Badr al-Abri.
The volume is published by the Omani Cultural Club and is available for purchase. Click here to purchase the publication.
