This book offers a coherent theory of the origins and early development of Islamic law. The author grounds his argument in a series of representative passages from the earliest juristic works, many of them translated here for the first time. Succeeding chapters demonstrate the creativity of early Muslim civilization in literary forms, juristic norms, and hermeneutic technique. Drawing on the tradition of Islamic scholarship represented by such names as Ignaz Goldziher, Joseph Schacht, and John Wansborough, Calder is sensitive also to the development of methodology and technique in the parallel fields of Biblical and Rabbinical Studies. Grounding all his major generalizations in precise textual detail, he evokes the social, political and intellectual concerns of Muslim civilization in its most formative period. Calder demonstrates that many of the usual connotations are not appropriate to the understanding of early Muslim jurisprudence. The surviving texts constitute and lively record of how the early Muslim community created the major symbols of its own identity.