Scaffolding, Foundations, Framings and Sources for the Study

For those who take interest, the appendix erects the “Scaffolding, Foundations, Framings and Sources for the Study” by first clarifying who is, and is not, the intended “Audience” (see “Intended Audience & Market” below). It then seeks to “Disentangle the Historic and Present Relation of Islamic Legal Terms.” Afterwards, I discuss my approach to “Analyzing and Documenting Primary and Secondary Sources.” The most important point worth highlighting here (among a number of others) is that this study necessarily combines intellectual, related literary and legal policy-and-action history; this helps explain not only the varied sources, in terms of both genre and field-discipline, but the overall structure and approach to the study. Beyond this, I address briefly the question of my own vantage and potential biases on the topic of “Religion and Law in American History” by discussing my views on the topic as it relates to the Black Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s–60s. I hold that “the prominence of the (distinctively Black) Christian Bible alongside (distinctively Black) Islamic divine legal and ethical teachings inclusive of the Qur’an, supplemented by Jewish Rabbinical and Catholic interpretations of the Torah and ‘Canon Law’, alongside secular-humanist traditions, and their respective impacts morally-ethically on American national civil rights law is incontestable.” I do not and cannot, in general principle, stand against these various religious-(and secular-) based legal traditions within the Black Civil Rights Movement historically, or their continuing legacy of influence on civil rights and other social-political issues today. In broader terms then of my treatment of “Religion and Law in American History” within this volume historically, I strive to remain as objective as possible in my analyses and interpretations of the historical evidence, whether religious or secular, and favor no particular sources over any others based in any notions of human and/or divine “inspiration.” All sources, and their historical interpretations or appropriations, are subjected to the same methods and standards of historical-critical analysis. The chapter then closes with “A Comparative Survey of Recently Published Relevant Literature.”