Shattering Tradition

Walter Dostal is Professor Emeritus of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Since 1956 he has carried out ethnographic fieldwork in many parts of the Arab world and is a pioneer of research on the Arab peninsula. He has taught in Bern, Zurich, Istanbul, Jeddah, Riyadh and has published eight books and articles. Walter Kraus is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. He has carried out extensive fieldwork in Morocco and has published on various aspects of tribal identity in Muslim societies.

"An impressive array of scholarship on Islamic law in action in historical and contemporary locations. Shattering Tradition is a timely demonstration of the flexibility and contexuality of Islamic law against the common conceptions of the Shari'a as a fixed canon. There is much useful material for the student and scholar. - Sami Zubaida, Professor of Sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London"