This handbook is a detailed reference source comprising of original articles covering the origins, history, theory and practice of Islamic law.

Khaled Abou El Fadl is the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Islam and Shari'ah, Islamic law and Islamic jurisprudence. Among his books are: Reasoning with God: Reclaiming Shari'ah in the Modern Age (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014); The Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006); Speaking in God's Name: Islamic law, Authority and Women (Oneworld Publications, 2001); And God Knows the Soldiers: The Authoritative and Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses (Rowman and Littlefield/UPA, 2001); The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (HarperOne, 2007) and Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Ahmad Atif Ahmad is professor of religious studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is the author of Islamic Law: Cases, Authorities, and Worldview (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), The Fatigue of the Sharia (New York: Palgrave, 2012), and Structural Interrelations of Theory and Practice in Islamic Law (Leiden: Brill, 2006), Professor Ahmad teaches courses on Islamic legal reasoning in medieval Islam and early modern Egypt.

Said Fares Hassan currently teaches at al-Azhar University, Faculty of Languages and Translation, Department of Islamic Studies, Cairo, Egypt. He received his PhD from UCLA in 2011. He worked as a visiting assistant professor at Georgetown University in 2012; a visiting fellow at the Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin, Indonesia in 2014; and a visiting fellow at the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, Freie Universität, Berlin also in 2014. His publications include Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: History, Development and Progress (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013) and 'Law-Abiding Citizen: Recent Fatwas on Muslim Minorities' Loyalty to Western Nations', Journal of the Muslim World, October 2015. He has contributed a number of chapters to edited volumes such as Education and the Arab Spring: Shifting Toward Democracy, 2016, Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, 2016, and The Encyclopedia of Muslim American History, 2010.

1: I. Approaches and the State of the Field; 2: II. What Type of Law Is Islamic Law?; 3: Part One: Jurisprudence and Ethics; 4: Chapter 1: Shari¿ah, Natural Law and the Original State; 5: Chapter 2: "God Cannot be Harmed": On ¿uq¿q Allah/¿uq¿q al-¿Ib¿d Continuim; 6: Chapter 3: Balancing this World and Next: Obligation in Islamic Jurisprudence; 7: Chapter 4: Divine Command Ethics in the Islamic Legal Tradition; 8: Chapter 5: Islamic Law and Bioethics; 9: Part Two: History and Interpretation: Scholars; 10: Chapter 6: The Qur¿an and the Hadith as Sources of Islamic Law; 11: Chapter 7: The Emergence of the Major Schools of Islamic Law; 12: Chapter 8: Qadis and Muftis: Judicial Authority in Islamic Law; 13: Chapter 9: Consensus; 14: Chapter 10: Superior Argument; 15: Chapter 11: Maq¿¿id al-Shari¿ah; 16: Chapter 12: Legal Pluralism in Sunni Islamic Law; 17: Chapter 13: Interpreting Islamic Law: The Role of Legal Canons; 18: Chapter 14: Ijtih¿d and Taql¿d; 19: Part Three: History and Interpretation: Society and Politics; 20: Chapter 15: Legal Traditions of the 'Near East': The Pre-Islamic Context; 21: Chapter 16: The Place of Custom in Islamic Law; 22: Chapter 17: Jihad, Sovereignty, and Jurisdiction; 23: Chapter 18: Fiqh al-Aqalliyy¿t and Muslim Minorities in the West; 24: Chapter 19: Family Law and Succession; 25: Chapter 20: Islamic Law and the Question of Gender Equality; 26: Part Four: State and Power; 27: Chapter 21: Islamic law and the State in pre-modern Sunni thought; 28: Chapter 22: Concept of State in Shi¿i Jurisprudence; 29: Chapter 23: Codification, Legal Borrowing and the Localization of 'Islamic Law'; 30: Chapter 24: Modern Islamic Constitutional Theory; 31: Chapter 25: Islam, Constitutionalism and Democratic Self-Government; 32: Chapter 26: Terrorism, Religious Violence, and the Shari¿ah; 33: Index