The Transmission of Knowledge and the Education of the ‘Ulama in Late Sixteenth-Century Maghrib

Degrees of Interpretive Autonomy: Ijtihād and the constraints of competence and context in late medieval Tilimsan

“…A survey of the curricula of the schools of medieval Tilimsan reveals the presence of a signi cant number of derivative compositions that may be construed as products of a localized application of Islamic meta-prescriptions. Accordingly, much of the pedagogical activities of the schools consisted of translating this universal body of knowledge into local usages and articulations (Abi-Mershed 2001). This suggests that the schools of Tilimsan were also interested in producing scholars who could adequately complete the intellectual transaction between the universal and the local.…”

“…1 In support of this assertion, they have pointed to the centrality of immutable dogma to medieval Islamic literacy, and to the curricular uniformity that characterizes it. I have argued elsewhere that this conclusion tends to neutralize the intricate connections and mediations between systems of thought and the social contexts in which they are produced and preserved, and to minimize the relevance of learned Muslims (¨ulamā ') to their immediate communities (Abi-Mershed 2001). Indeed, the analysis of Islamic instruction in late medieval Tilimsan (Tlemcen) con rmed that the standing of the¨ulamā ' did not merely stem from their access to, and control over, a constant and sacred body of knowledge, but also depended on their ability to organize the acquired religious and legal data into effective social strategies.…”