The Prophet's Family in Islamic Jurisprudence

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24520064
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Religious studies
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: MORIMOTO Kazuo 東京大学, 東洋文化研究所, 准教授 (00282707)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: サイイド / シャリーフ / 系譜学者 / シーア派

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project explored the roles and positions the putative kinfolk of the Prophet Muhammad held in Muslim societies, different dogmatic and jurisprudential stances regarding the special meaning of the Prophetic descent such people claimed, and the activities of the experts of their genealogies, that is, those who were expected to guarantee the authenticity of the descent claimed by those putative kinfolk of the Prophet. Most importantly, the research project uncovered that the activities of the genealogists from Shi‘i centers in Iraq in the 14th and the 15th centuries were deeply related with the strategy of the Shi‘i community at the time to promote its interests (“covert sectarianism”). This discovery significantly promotes our understanding of how dogmatic and jurisprudential understandings of the meaning of the Prophetic descent evolved over the related centuries.

Free Research Field

イスラーム史