Islamic Law and the Boundaries of Social Responsibility

A ryeh cohen’s essay on “Justice in the City” in this issue of Tikkun—and his remarkable book on the same subject—sent me searching for an analog in the medieval Islamic texts that I study. I was inspired by Cohen’s fresh look at rabbinic legal discourse, in which he uncovers profound disquisitions on the nature of obligation and interpersonal relations in an urban context. He manages to connect ancient legal debates on such pedestrian topics as zoning rules and ritual law to issues like homelessness in modern-day Los Angeles. Cohen is not the first to attempt such a connection, and the shortcomings of similar works breed a certain skepticism and cynicism toward the enterprise as a whole. To suggest that rabbinic scholars had the same concerns as those raised by the modern nation-state is embarrassingly anachronistic, if not incredibly naïve. Cohen, however, resists such anachronisms and instead offers a sophisticated...