Mental Disability in Medieval hanafi Legalism

Abstract

This article analyses forms of mental disability in Islamic law (fiqh). Classical and medieval fiqh specialists discussed two forms of mental disability: mental impairment (‘atah) and madness (junun). In canonical texts of legal theory, formal discussions of ‘atah and junun appeared in chapters on legal capacity (ahliyyah) and interdiction (hajr). The fiqhi configurations of the mentally impaired person (ma‘tuh) and the madman (majnun) are important to study, for they reveal Muslim jurists’ critical assumptions about reason and responsibility, disability and dutifulness, legal personhood and ethical subjectivity. These peripheral figures are strikingly revelatory of the meanings Muslim jurists associated with concepts such as norm-obligation (wujub) and norm-performance (ada’). Restricting the analysis to medieval central Asian hanafi texts, this article examines how jurists nuanced their theoretical discussions of legal capacity to include persons with mental disabilities within the fold of legal personhood and ethical subjectivity. Most hanafi's divided legal capacity into two types: “the capacity to receive obligation” (ahliyyat al-wujub) and “the capacity to perform obligation” (ahliyyat al-ada’). In this article, I argue that ahliyyat al-wujub provided a conceptual asylum for persons with disabilities. In this way, medieval hanafi jurists advanced the Prophetic care and compassion for the mentally disabled.