Zahirism, Literalism and Textualism: Did Literalism Exist in the Islamic Tradition?
Amr Osman is Assistant Professor of Islamic History at Qatar University. He earned his PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University in 2010. The subject of his dissertation was the history and doctrine of a medieval school of Islamic law known as the Zahiri madhhab. His research interests include the intellectual history of Islam as well as modern and contemporary Arab politics and thought. He has published articles on the redaction of the Qur’anic text as well as the origin and development of ‘adalat al-sahaba, one of the pillars of Sunni Muslim faith according to which the integrity of all the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad must be accepted for doctrinal as well as practical purposes (such as hadith transmission). He is currently revising his doctoral dissertation for Brill’s Islamic Law and Society series. He is also translating a recent book on Islam, politics and modernity from English to Arabic.
As a Zukuntsphilologie fellow, he will expand on aspects of the doctrine of the Zahiri madhhab and its presumed ‘literalist’ approach and, among other things, how this relates to modern legal philosophy and linguistic studies.
