Harmonizing Similarities is a study of the legal distinctions (al-furuq al-fiqhiyya) literature
and its role in the development of the Islamic legal heritage. This book reconsiders how the
public performance of Islamic law helped shape legal literature. It identifies the origins of
this tradition in contemporaneous lexicographic and medical literature both of which
demonstrated the productive potential of drawing distinctions. Elias G. Saba demonstrates the
implications of the legal furuq and how changes to this genre reflect shifts in the social
consumption of Islamic legal knowledge. The interest in legal distinctions grew out of the
performance of knowledge in formalized legal disputations. From here legal distinctions
incorporated elements of play through its interactions with the genre of legal riddles. As play
books of legal distinctions were supplements to performance in literary salons study circles
and court performances these books also served as mimetic objects allowing the reader to
participate in a session virtually. Saba underscores how social and intellectual practices
helped shape the literary development of Islamic law and that literary elaboration became a
main driver of dynamism in Islamic law. This monograph has been awarded the annual BRAIS - De
Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World.
