Gerald Hawting is a Senior Lecturer in the History of the Near and Middle East at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies in London. Jawid Mojaddedi is Lecturer in Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. Alexander Samely is Senior Lecturer in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester. Norman Calder, who died on 13/2/98 at the age of 47, was one of the leading international scholars in the academic study of Islamic jurisprudence and hermeneutics. At the time of his retirement due to ill health in 1997, he was Senior Lecturer in Arabic in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Manchester (UK) and holder of a British Academy Fellowship. As well as 18 articles in leading academic journals and contributions to several scholarly encyclopaedias, he was the author of Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence (Clarendon Press Oxford 1993).

This volume reflects the late Norman Calder's own interests and contributions. It includes articles by scholars who are similarly renowned for their sophisticated and challenging approaches to Arabic and Islamic texts. Also represented are his former students and colleagues working in the field of Rabbinic Studies, which informed his own work.