Ritual and Rationality in Islam: A Case Study on Nail Polish

Abstract

This article examines an ongoing controversy in Islamic ritual law concerning the effect of nail polish on one’s ritual purity. Ritual law serves as the canvas on which some of the most intriguing debates on Islamic theology, rationality and legal reasoning are sketched out as rival conceptualizations of the nature of God – as a rational and merciful agent or as supra-rational being – generate rival sets of jurisprudential and legal doctrines. The study of ritual law also reveals key fault lines in contemporary Sunni Islamic legal and theological thought, particularly the ways in which scholars expressing varying degrees of sympathy with Salafism – from the South Asian Ahl-e Ḥadīth tradition, the Ahl al-Ḥadīth tradition and the Ḥanbalī tradition – create new positions in Sunni law while continuing to champion principles and precedents valorized in Salafism and making their arguments legible in Sunnism.