WHEELER, Brannon M. Applying the Canon in Islam: The Authorization and Maintenance of Interpretive Reasoning in Hanafi Scholarship. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Pp. xv + 324. ISBN 0-7914-2974-1. Paperback, $22.95. This is no doubt a pioneering work, soundly conceived and accurately portraying the processes and dynamics of legal reasoning and interpretation in fura‘ works. The author explores a vast textual expanse, starting with the major jurists of the second/eighth century and continuing on through the later authorities down to the commentators. Although more than one quarter of the book deals with Malik, Shafi‘ and other jurists (especially in the early sections), the main focus remains, as the subtitle indicates, the Hanafi school and its legal discourse. The two main processes with which the book is concerned are the early authorization of interpretive reasoning and the means by which this authori- zation was maintained after the formative period. Authorization is reflected in the common assumption that adopting a particular principle presupposes a thorough knowledge of how the sunna interprets the Qur’an. Accordingly, the canonical import of the Qur’anic text is guaranteed both by the modes of the Prophet’s interpretation as well as by the juristic construction of this interpretation. Later legal scholarship claims—and indeed acquires— authority because it can demonstrate that its conclusions are both consistent with and derived from previous scholarship (which claimed its own authority in the same manner). This means that it is not the juristic opinions themselves which are to be learned and rehearsed by later generations of scholars, but rather the logic and the principles embodied in them. These, and nothing else, determine the canonical significance of the revelation; and it is these that become, in classical and post-classical jurisprudence, the primary authoritative material on which subsequent scholarship must focus. One of the book’s valuable contributions is thus to make sense of the commentarial nature of later juris- prudence. Commentaries, glosses and super-glosses all partake in the signifi- cant task of maintaining authorization which is essential for what Wheeler calls the definition of practice. Wheeler could have produced an even better book had he avoided some obvious problems, the first and foremost of which is a fundamental discon- nection between the arguments made in the book and the highly animated discussions currently raging in the field. Wheeler writes in isolation, making no attempt whatsoever to relate his findings to these debates. The book would © Brill, Leiden, 1998 Islamic Law and Society 5,1124 BOOKREVIEWS have benefited greatly from an attempt by the author to tease out the impli- cations of his findings and to analyze the ramifications of these findings in the context of the issues of ijtihdd and taglid. In particular, the sections dealing with commentarial practice would have offered an excellent opportunity to revise current wisdom and to endow the medieval “dark period” of Islamic law with a fresh and persuasive explanation. Wheeler opens and closes his book with references to Ndembu divination and to the practices of northern Australian tribes. While some readers may find these comparative insights helpful or illuminating, this reader found them intrusive to the integrity of the main thesis, and thus unnecessary. These comparative excursions contribute nothing to clarifying the analysis of the Hanafi endeavor to authorize and maintain interpretive reasoning. I was also struck by a remarkable absence of Arabic technical terms in the extensive quotations from the original texts and in the discussions based on these texts. Here too there is a sense of disconnection between the book and the Arabic materials which inform it. The book suffers from a large number of spelling and other errors, especially in the transliteration of Arabic words, which may at times indicate misreadings. The style of writing is frequently less than felicitous. Add to this a penchant for repetition, an attribute that runs through most of the book. Neither the author nor the publisher should have allowed the book to go to press in this form. Here are only a few examples: mugirr la-hu not muqir li- hu (p. 188); hajar not hijr (p. 189); Ghazali’s book is entitled al-Mustasfa min “im al-usul not al-Mustasfa min al-‘ilm al-usiil (p. 281); ‘Abd al-Wahhab not “Abd al-Wahab (p. 291); Ibn ‘Abidin’s title ends with ‘ald al-durr al-mukhtar not ‘ald dar al-mukhtar (p. 294); Dar Nahdat Misr not Dar al-Nahdat Misr (p. 294); in Ibn ‘Asakir’s title, the correct form is kadhb not kadhab, and nusiba not nasab (p. 294). Diacritical errors are also numerous, e.g. on pages 294 and 302, each of which contains at least seven mistakes. Wael B. Hallaq McGill University