The Dialectical Forge Part I: Proto-System Juridical Disputation in the 'Kitab Ikhtilaf al-`Iraqiyyin

Dialectic (jadal or munaz&dotbelow;ara ) is undoubtedly the primary formative dynamic in the evolution of Islamic legal systems, whether in the expansion and justification of doctrinal bodies of substantive law (fiqh), or in the elaboration and refinement of legal theory (us&dotbelow;ul al-fiqh). Despite this most critical role, however, relatively few studies have been dedicated to juridical dialectic (al-jadal al-fiqhi); and, to my knowledge, none have attempted to explore or explain its powerful function in the shaping of legal systems and attendant literary discourse. A principal objective of this current project is to bring the formative dynamic of jadal to the forefront of considerations in Islamic legal studies, with special regard to the evolution of both legal-theoretical and juridical-dialectical sciences.;Significantly, one may easily discern the dynamic of a sophisticated juridical dialectic at work in our earliest extant legal literature, particularly in works which preserve details of legal argumentation and/or extended Q&A sequences of dialectical debate. One such work is the Kitab al-Umm of Muh&dotbelow;ammad b. Idris al-Shafi`i (d.204/820), and it is a particular treatise found in this early compendium --- the Ikhtilaf al-`Iraqiyyin --- with which the current project will be most concerned. Part II of this dissertation comprises a parallel, annotated translation of this treatise; Part I is chiefly occupied with: 1) an analysis of its dialectical elements; 2) my arguments with regard to their implications; and 3) the elaboration of a theoretical model to account for the formative dynamic of juridical jadal in the evolution of legal-theoretical and dialectical systems.;My procedure in Part I is as follows. First, I will draw attention to the "dialectical milieu" of early Islamic intellectual history and provide a background of current evolutionary narratives for jadal-theory systems (Chapter I.2). Following this, I will fashion a "lens for analysis" from certain of our earliest extant (fifth century H) "full-system" treatises on juridical jadal (Chapter II). With this lens, I will proceed to analyze the "proto-system" dialectic of our subject-treatise, the Ikhtilaf al-`Iraqiyyin (Chapter III). The implications of these analyses will then be explored; and a natural, symbiotic co-evolution of dialectical and legal-theoretical teaching and practice, from the start of the Islamic jurisprudential project, will be asserted (Chapter IV.1). Finally, a "Unified Dialectical Forge Theory" will be developed (Chapter IV.2). This latter is intended as a preliminary working model for the formative dynamic of juridical dialectic in the evolution of us&dotbelow;ul al-fiqh and jadal systems, both. Overall, it is hoped that our theoretical model, translation of the Ikhtilaf al-`Iraqiyyin , and analyses of its contents, together with the window onto proto-system dialectic and legal theory which these subprojects afford us, will constitute the primary contributions of this dissertation.