ABSTRACT
We move from writing to reasoning. Judaic and Islamic law provide not only facts of what must or must not be done. In imposing upon a changing world the enduring principles of justice and truth, each system also appeals to rules of reason, modes of thought that guide people in dealing with the new and the unprecedented. What we now want to know is: do the Judaic and the Muslim lawyer-theologians think along the same lines, follow the same principles of logic, respond to the same types of criticism and challenge? That is what we investigate when we describe, analyze, and interpret the intellectual sources that sustain the law and theology of Judaism and Islam: how does the law intersect with everyday life?
