AMI Holds Inaugural Quranic Conference: Regulative Verses of the Qur’ān (āyāt al-aḥkām)

Al-Mahdi Institute held a two-day international academic conference, marking a new chapter in the Institute’s commitment to promoting research and scholarship in various Islamic disciplines. This event was the first in a series of conferences devoted to examining aspects of the Quran. Internationally acclaimed scholars presented 19 papers in three main panels: historical reception, philosophical debates, and thematic contributions.

The historical context for the development of the genre of ayāt al-aḥkām across different schools of thought was set by the first four papers. Devin J. Stewart’s assessment of the earliest manifestations of this genre was followed by Nora K. Schmid’s exploration of Ibadi contributions. Robert Gleave and S. M. Ghari Seyed Fatemi then examined Akhbārī and Uṣūlī contributions, highlighting the Imāmī approach to the Quran as a legal source. These papers laid the foundation for subsequent panels on philosophical approaches and thematic issues.

The philosophical panel featured seven papers, including Hamid Vahid’s proposal for understanding obligatory faith in the Quran and Salwa El-Awa’s Relevance Theory-based approach to linguistic ambiguity. M. Ashraf Adeel discussed arguments for conditional variability of hadd punishments, while Mahmoud Morvarid presented a Decision-Theoretic Approach to the Ḥujjiyya of regulative verses. Gholamreza Aavani explored the universality of Quranic divine commands, and Oliver Leaman examined the relationship between ayat al-ahkam and maqasid al-shariʿa.

Finally, Shaykh Arif Abdul Hussain analysed regulative verses from an existential perspective.

The thematic contributions panel began with Abla Hasan’s critical study of the elite male addressee myth and its implications for regulative verses. Karen Bauer examined households, patronage, and social structuring of Qur’anic law, while Muhammad Zubair Abbasi explored inheritance rights of childless widows under Shia personal law in Pakistan. Holger Zellentin discussed Biblical Law, the Decree of the Apostles, and the Qur’an, followed by Nicolai Sinai’s analysis of divine law in Quranic moral theology. Etin Anwar considered environmental ethics in Qur’anic regulatory verses, and Sarra Tlili examined the Quran and killing for food.

The panel concluded with Imranali Panjwani’s reflection on the obligatory nature of Ṣalāt al-Layl and Sūrat al-Muzammil as a case study.

The inaugural Quranic conference showcased diverse perspectives on regulative verses of the Quran, highlighting the importance of promoting shared academic spaces for scholars to present and debate research. Al-Mahdi Institute, in collaboration with AMI Press, plans to publish an edited volume of the conference papers in March 2024.