8 Negotiating Speech in Islamic Law and Politics: Flipped Traditions of Expression

In the spirit of ‘clearing ground’, this chapter interrogates the Islamic legal tradition by seeking answers to the questions that arise from these new dynamics: What is the ‘old script’, so to speak, of speech in classical Islamic law? How wide is the scope of the doctrine, and what are its limits? More importantly, from where do these doctrines emerge and what can the process of unearthing the origins of the Islamic law of speech tell us about the values that such doctrines reflect or impose, then and now? If classical Islamic law is to guide questions of modern legal interpretation and underwrite significant aspects of political legitimacy, even if in the shadow of otherwise secular deliberation and legislation, what are the tensions between the tradition and the accommodation of notions of speech and democracy in the modern day?