Mumtaz Ahmad is professor in Hampton University’s Department of Political Science. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ “Fundamentalism Project,” Dr. Ahmad has been a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Fellow of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a Fulbright Professor in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and a Vis...

Paul Power’s new book, Intent in Islamic Law, is a challenging and welcome addition to contemporary scholarship on Islamic law and comparative law. Powers examines the way in which the classical Islamic jurists thought about motive, how they thought motive could be identified, and how they thought an actor’s “intent” affected the “legality” of his actions. To accomplish his task, Powers compare...