To say that the issue of Islamic legal reform is on the minds of most scholars and students (Muslim or otherwise) of Islamic law is hardly an exaggeration. But what does reform look like? Rumee Ahmed engages the issue in his recent book, Sharia Compliant: A User’s Guide to Hacking Islamic Law. Intended for a broad audience and aimed at catalyzing legal change from the bottom up, Sharia Compliant attempts to demystify Islamic jurisprudence and provide a blueprint for lawmaking, or “hacking” Islamic law, through reverse-engineering. In the process of his critique of Islamic law, Ahmed revises its history and method. This review argues that in lieu of reform, Ahmed argues for re-forming Islamic law. The hyphen is meant to indicate that Ahmed’s proposal amounts to a transmutation of fiqh and uṣūl al-fiqh: Islamic law is not interpreted, but arbitrarily willed; its sources (the Qur’an and Sunna), ornaments of this will, are instrumentalized to serve any desired end. In the end, Ahmed’s re-formed system undermines his hope for a democratic process of lawmaking.

说伊斯兰法律改革问题在大多数伊斯兰法律学者和学生（穆斯林或其他人）的脑海中并不夸张。但改革是什么样子的？Rumee Ahmed 在他最近的著作《符合伊斯兰教法：黑客入侵伊斯兰法律的用户指南》中讨论了这个问题。Sharia Compliant 面向广大受众，旨在自下而上地促进法律变革，试图揭开伊斯兰法理学的神秘面纱，并通过逆向工程为立法或“破解”伊斯兰法律提供蓝图。艾哈迈德在批判伊斯兰教法的过程中，对其历史和方法进行了修正。这篇评论认为，艾哈迈德主张改革伊斯兰教法，而不是改革。连字符是为了表明艾哈迈德的提议相当于 fiqh 和 uṣūl al-fiqh 的变体：伊斯兰法律不被解释，而是随意的；它的来源（古兰经和圣行），作为这种意志的装饰品，被用来服务于任何想要的目的。最后，艾哈迈德改革后的制度破坏了他对民主立法进程的希望。