Paternity and filiation according to the jurists of al-Andalus: legal doctrines on transgression of the Islamic social order

Abstract

This article aims to broaden our knowledge of Muslims’ approaches to the idea of paternity, paying attention to the legal doctrine relating to situations in which the established social order is transgressed or put at risk, circumstances that tend to be dealt with at length in chapters concerning zina (fornication or non-legal sexual relation) in works of Islamic jurisprudence. To this end, a specific chronological and geographical context has been selected, that of al-Andalus, the study of which constitutes a model for analysis that is applicable, both as a model and in its results, to other Islamic societies in the same period. Most Muslim jurists in al-Andalus belonged to the Maliki school, one of the four Sunni or orthodox juridical schools. The doctrine of the minority, i.e. the Zahiri legal school, is also taken into account.