Lecture Series on the History and Culture of Central Asia (Winter Semester 2023/24)Law and Society in Medieval Khurasan and Transoxiana: Shurūṭ WorksA lecture by Ahmad Khan, assistant professor of Islamic Studies at The American University in Cairo

14 November 2023

Photo: Ahmad Khan

Folio of a manuscript from a Shurut Work

The lecture series of this winter term goes on with the lecture of Dr. Ahmad Khan on "Law and Society in Medieval Khurasan and Transoxiana: Shurūṭ Works". The lecture will take place on November 14^th, 2023 at 1pm CET/ 4pm Tashkent Time online via Zoom.

Abstract: Shurūṭ Works have an ambivalent status in the study of Islamic law and society. These are works, composed first in the ninth century, that provide model contracts for a wide range of legal transactions and agreements. They seem to have originated in the Qadi's office, where scribes and notaries would draft contracts. Modern scholars, working mainly based on Iraqi and Egyptian shurūṭ works, have debated the extent to which shurūṭ works reflect legal doctrine and historical practice. This lecture provides a history of shurūṭ works in medieval Khurasan and Transoxiana. It will examine what they can tell us about legal doctrine and social practice in the eastern provinces of the Islamicate world.

Bio of the Lecturer: Ahmad Khan is an assistant professor of Islamic Studies at The American University in Cairo (AUC). His research focuses on classical Islamic thought (tafsir, hadith, law, and sufism) in its intellectual, social, and historical contexts. His first book, the co-edited volume, Reclaiming Islamic Tradition: Modern Interpretations of the Classical Heritage, Edinburgh University Press explored medieval and modern Islamic thought. His second book examined the formation of medieval Sunnism, with a focus on debates over orthodoxy and heresy, Heresy and the Formation of Medieval Islamic Orthodoxy: The Making of Sunnism, Cambridge University Press (2023). He is currently finishing his third book, looking at Islamic law and society in medieval Khurasan. Khan received his DPhil from the University of Oxford, Faculty of Oriental Studies, where he also completed his MPhil. He joined The American University in Cairo (AUC) as an assistant professor in 2018. Prior to AUC, he worked at Oxford and Hamburg universities. In 2022, he was appointed the Arcapita visiting professor at Columbia University in New York.

In order to participate, please use the following Zoom login data:
Meeting ID: 525 843 6902
Password: 12345

For more information about the joint Lecture Series on the History and Culture of Central Asia and this presentation , please see here.