ABSTRACT
The three scholars who - in this century - have contributed most to our understanding of the history and structure of Islamic law are unanimous in supporting the view that no thoroughgoing changes occurred in Islamic law after the tenth century. According to Joseph Schacht1 and Noel J. Coulson,2 the corpus juris of the Muslim jurists was developed during the 'formative period' of Islamic law extending until the middle of the ninth or the begining of the tenth century. Chafik Chehata speaks of a 'pre-classical period' of Islamic law that comprises the eighth to the tenth centuries and in which the corpus juris musulman reached its final stage of development.1 He shares with Schacht and Coulson the view that the legal ordinances of Islamic law were fully developed in this period and underwent only minor changes in the following periods. 4 He calls this period the 'pre-classical period' of Hanafite law because the most systematic and coherent forms of reasoning that underlie the various legal ordinances and establish their unity and cohesion as a legal system were developed only in the 'classical period' of Hanafite law, i.e. from the tenth to the twelfth centuries.5 Chehata's penetrating analysis of the development of the systematic and coherent forms of reasoning of Hanafite jurists in the 'classical period' has, indeed, added much to our understanding of the structure of Hanafite law.6
