ABSTRACT
This chapter examines conceptions of common sense and consensus, and the relation of knowledge and ignorance in the methodological literature. Shari'a discourse represents a specialized subset of formal Arabic usage in the same way that jurisprudence is a specialized subset of all knowledge. A man from a rural village makes his way along stone paved alleys and through the central market street to the shari'a judge's house near the Great Mosque. Uttering an initial greeting at the door, the man enters and advances across the room toward the seated judge, and then abruptly stoops to kiss the judge's hand and knee. The fingers of the old judge's hands are long and smooth, accustomed to the discipline of the pen. The chapter reviews egalitarian and hierarchical themes in the applied literature. The analytic move underway from culture to ideology can be developed, in short, by a further move from common sense to hegemony.
