Twenty per cent of all the people in the world live under Islamic law. Going beyond steroetypes of rigid doctrine punishment the author explores the connections between everyday social life and contemporary Muslim ideas of justice and reason. Islamic law is thus seen as a kind of common law system closely attached to the cultural history of its adherents.

The world is facing a great dilemma due to despicable, inhumane and barbaric acts of terrorism, indiscriminate killings, warfare, anarchy, disorder and suicide bombings over the past two decades. It is not only destroying the peace of any specific region, group or country but has become a major threat to world peace. Young People and Students living in various western countries who do not have conceptual clarity regarding Islam are wronglyconsidering terrorism and indiscriminate killing to be Jihad and are being drawn towards it.A further disturbing issue with regards to this is that the terrorists declare their evil goals to be part of the Islamic concept of Jihad. Furthermore they speak of enforcing the Islamic Shariah according to their extremist and terrorist ideology. They call for the re-establishment of the Caliphate as part of their ideology; and they use the Islamic terminologies and concepts of Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) to legally justify their claims. By quoting the Qur'an, hadith and texts from the books of Islamic Law out of context, they influence common Muslims who are not acquainted with the true teachings of Islam, especially youngsters.There is a need to provide authentic, comprehensive material against extremism to all people, from every walk of life, according to their needs, so that the conceptual and ideological confusions which may lead to terrorismcan be eliminated. The Islamic Curriculum on Peace and Counter-Terrorism was prepared for this purpose. This curriculum has 3 parts and aims to provide resources from the Holy Qur'an, Hadith and authoritative books to provide a comprehensive ideological and theological background to all the key areas that are utilised to brainwash youngsters.The Islamic Curriculum on Peace and Counter-Terrorism has been compiled under the supervision and guidance of Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri - who is the author of the Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings.

This book focuses on dealing with questions and concerns regarding long-term and sustainable peaceful relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, in both Muslim majority countries and also western countries where Muslims live as minorities.The book is divided into two sections. The first section discusses individual and community relations, providing ample evidences for very important aspects in this regard. Muslims in their treatment of non-Muslims, bas a rule, are to ensure that all non-Muslims are secure in their lives and in their belongings.The book further illustrates how Muslims are to treat non-Muslims with piety and excellent social morality, and not as second class citizens or inferior beings.The second section of the book discusses the categories of abodes, making this work one of geopolitical relevance. Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri provides evidences and nuanced interpretations of the concepts "The Abode of Islam, The Abode of Reconciliation, The Abode of Treaty, The Abode of Peace, and The Abode of War." Clear definitions of these categories are offered, along with how different countries can and cannot be classified in each of these categories.This book presents a high standard of Islamic scholarship for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Members of diverse communities may benefit by comparing their own viewpoints, perspectives, understandings, and opinions with this important work of an authentic scholarly standard.

The Research Handbook on Islamic Law and Society provides an examination of the role of Islamic law as it applies in Muslim and non-Muslim societies through legislation, fatwa, court cases, sermons, media, or scholarly debate. It illuminates and analyses the intersection of social, political, economic and cultural contexts in which state actors have turned to Islamic law for legal solutions. Taking a thematic approach, the Research Handbook assesses the application of Islamic law across six key areas: family law and courts; property and business; criminal law and justice; ethics, health and sciences; arts and education; and community and public spheres. Through examination of these themes in over 20 jurisdictions, the Research Handbook serves to demonstrate that Islamic law is adaptable depending on the values of Muslim societies across different times and places. In addition, the Research Handbook highlights how Islamic law has engaged with contemporary issues, looking beyond what is set out in the Qur'an and the Hadith, to examine how Islamic law is applied in societies today. Researchers and scholars with an interest in Islamic law, or the relationship between law and society more generally will find this Research Handbook to be an engaging text. The in-depth analysis, spanning sectors and jurisdictions, will offer new insights and inspire future research. Contributors include: M. Ali, M.F.A. Alsubaie, A. Begum, A. Black, R. Burgess, M. Corbett, K.M. Eadie, H. Esmaeili, N. Hammado, N. Hosen, N. Hussin, A.A. Jamal, M.A.H. Khutani, F. Kutty, N.Y.K. Lahpan, A.O.A. Mesrat, R. Mohr, S.M. Solaiman, H.H.A. Tajuddin, M. Zawawi

Muslim Personal Law in South Africa: Evolution and Future Status, the first South African book on the topic of Muslim personal law, introduces readers to the debate on the awarding of unique rights to specific communities. The recognition of Muslim personal law or Muslim family law has provoked debate within and beyond the Muslim community and has attracted the attention of religious scholars, academics and lawyers. The contributors to this volume touch on constitutional issues, concerns with the application of Muslim personal law by our courts, and the conflict between supporters and opponents of the draft Bill on Muslim Marriages. The non-recognition of Muslim marriages has compelled Muslim women who have suffered the dire consequences of divorce, maintenance and custody to approach the courts for relief. If Muslim personal law were to be recognised by the state, to what extent would it protect the rights of women? Will recent judgments establish precedents that might prove to be at odds with the draft Bill? This book provides fascinating insight into the evolution and prospects of Muslim personal law in South Africa.

The English version of the introduction to the historic fatwa on terrorism and suicide bombings. This 88-page includes answers to various questions which radicals ask about suicide bombing and jihad, hijacking of foreign diplomats and explains why it is not jihad. The fatwa on terrorism highlights and discusses various issues including suicide bombing, terrorism, jihad, dar ul islam, dar ul harb.

Through the analysis of Al-Shaybani?'s most prolific work As-Siyar Al Kabier, this book offers a unique insight into the classic Islamic perspective on international law. Despite being recognised as one of the earliest contributors to the field of international law, there has been little written, in English, on Al-Shaybani?'s work; this book will go some way towards filling the lacuna. International Islamic Law examines Al-Shaybani?'s work alongside that of other leading scholars such as: Augustine, Gratian, Aquinas, Vitoria and Grotius, proving a full picture of early thinking on international law. Individual chapters provide discussion on Al-Shaybani?'s writing in relation to war, peace, the consequences of war and diplomatic missions. Khaled Ramadan Bashir uses contemporary international law vocabulary to enable the reader to consider Al-Shaybani?'s writing in a modern context. This book will be a useful and unique resource for scholars in the field of international Islamic law, bringing together and translating a number of historical sources to form one accessible and coherent text. Scholars researching the historical and jurisprudential origins of public international law topics, such as: international humanitarian law, ?just war?, international dispute resolution, asylum and diplomacy will also find the book to be an interesting and valuable text.

The twenty-first century has been significantly shaped by the growing importance of religion in international politics resulting in rising polarization among nation states. This new dynamic has presented new challenges to international human rights principles. This book deals with some of these new challenges, particularly the growing demand by Muslim states for protection of Islamic religion from blasphemy and defamation. Member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), through resolutions at the United Nations, made efforts to introduce laws that globally protect Islamic religion from blasphemy and defamation. The bid by OIC member states faced opposition from Western countries. The conflicting claims of the two sides are discussed in this book. The book clearly shows the impact of blasphemy and defamation of religion laws on certain aspects of fundamental human rights principles.

This book brings together the study of two great disciplines of the Islamic world: law and philosophy. In both sunni and shiite Islam, it became the norm for scholars to acquire a high level of expertise in the legal tradition. Thus some of the greatest names in the history of Aristotelianism were trained jurists, like Averroes, or commented on the status and nature of law, like al-Farabi. While such authors sought to put law in its place relative to the philosophical disciplines, others criticized philosophy from a legal viewpoint, like al-Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyya. But this collection of papers does not only explore the relative standing of law and philosophy. It also looks at how philosophers, theologians, and jurists answered philosophical questions that arise from jurisprudence itself. What is the logical structure of a well-formed legal argument? What standard of certainty needs to be attained in passing down judgments, and how is that standard reached? What are the sources of valid legal judgment and what makes these sources authoritative? May a believer be excused on grounds of ignorance? Together the contributions provide an unprecedented demonstration of the close connections between philosophy and law in Islamic society, while also highlighting the philosophical interest of texts normally studied only by legal historians.

This survey of Islamic law combines Western and Islamic views and describes the relationship between the original theories of Islamic law and the views of contemporary Islamic writers. Covering the key topics in the area, including the history, sources and formation of Islamic law, the legal mechanisms, and the contemporary context, it is strong in its coverage of the modern perspective, which distinguishes this book from other texts in the field. The aim is to provide the student with a basic understanding of Islamic law and access to the complexity of the Islamic legal system. The language used is non-technical and understanding is aided with a supplementary detailed glossary and analytical indices.

Islamic finance distinguishes itself from conventional finance with its strong emphasis on the moral consequences of financial transactions; prohibiting interest, excessive uncertainty, and finance of harmful business. When it comes to risk mitigation, it is unique in its risk sharing approach. This authoritative book tracks the evolution of the takaful industry over the course of the last four decades and makes a major attempt to highlight the importance of risk sharing through a discussion of various models of cooperation and critical analysis of their performance, including illuminating case studies and a critical assessment of the Islamic insurance model and the role of alternate financing mechanisms. Its high level discourse on shari'ah compliance and its nuances places emphasis on the importance of solidarity, cooperation, mutuality and reciprocity. Scholars and practitioners working in Islamic Finance will appreciate the context and nuance of this important book, and it will be essential reading for anyone interested in alternative forms of shari'ah compliant cooperative finance. The book is equally vital for academics and researchers interested in understanding various takaful models and their shari'ah considerations. Contributors include: A. Abozaid, A.U.F. Ahmad, A. Akhtar, S.N. Ali, H. Allam, M. Ayub, M. Al Bashir Al Amine, A. Bhatty, J.W. Bradford, S.E.B. Carmody, M.A. El-Gamal, M. Faisal, M.F. Haq, I. Bin Mahbob, A. Nana, V. Nienhaus, S. Nisar, U.A. Oseni, M. Rahman, A. Rehman, M.A. Samad, B. Shafiq, H. Sultan, A.-R. Syed, T.A. Uddin

Justice is considered the basic norm of human coexistence. Every legal order refers to the concept of justice, and Muslims also regard their religious norms (the Sharia) as offering just solutions to legal questions. But is the assumption that the Sharia is just merely an acceptance of a status quo correct? And is justice the necessary aim of the Sharia? In this volume, renowned scholars discuss these questions from different perspectives. In principle, the first normative source of Islam, the Qur'an, orders justice and fair conduct (Rohe). At the same time, an analysis of the concept of justice in the classical age of Islam (Ahmed and Poya) also shows that there existed ambivalent understandings of this concept. The relationship of the idea of justice in Islam to political questions (Ende), to war (Poya), and to modern reform (Mir-Hosseini) again confirms the importance of the concept for a critical reflection on traditional assumptions and existing circumstances. The discussion on the hijab in Western countries (Ladwig) shows paradigmatically how justice can regulate the relationship between the secular state and the Sharia. The essays in this volume endeavor to show that debates about justice, in Islam as well, express an underlying tension between the perception of an order as just on the one hand, and the feeling of injustice under the same order on the other. This discussion validates the idea that justice should be understood as a concept subject to a perpetual reexamination according to changing times and circumstances.

This book by renowned scholar and recognised authority on Islam, Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, is a discourse on the legal position of celebrating the Mawlid al-Nabi (birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)) within Islam. Most notably, the author has comprehensively compiled evidences from the authentic source texts and classical authorities to prove not only the permissibility of celebrating the Mawlid al-Nabi within the bounds of the Shari'a (Islamic Law) but also that it is divinely ordained and was a Sunna (practice) of the Prophet himself. The author presents unique and compelling arguments showing why celebrating Mawlid al-Nabi is not only an act of righteousness, but a need of our time. Tackling the various criticisms of this act head on, he specifically addresses the issue of why the first generation of Muslims did not celebrate the Mawlid, and clarifies that labelling the Mawlid as an bid'ah (innovation) betrays a fundamental and serious flaw in the understand of the Islamic concept of bid'ah.

Based on a comparative analysis of several hundred religio-juristic treatises and fatwas (religious decisions), Shari'a and Muslim Minorities: The Wasati and Salafi Approaches to Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat al-Muslima offers the most systematic and comprehensive study to date of fiqh al aqalliyyat al-Muslima - the field in Islamic jurisprudence that treats issues that are unique to Muslims living in majority non-Muslim societies. The book argues that two main contesting approaches to fiqh al-aqalliyyat al-Muslima, the wasati and the salafi, have developed, in part dialectically. While both envision a future Islamizing of the West as a main justification for Muslim residence in the West, the wasati approach is pragmatic, facilitating, and integration-minded, whereas the salafi calls for strict application of religious norms and for introversion. The volume examines diverse and highly-debated juristic issues, including the permissibility of naturalizing in non-Muslim states, participating in their electoral systems and serving in their militaries and police forces; the permissibility of taking mortgages and student loans; the permissibility of congratulating Christians on Christmas or receiving Christmas bonuses; and the permissibility of working in professions that involve breaching of religio-legal prohibitions (e.g. serving pork). Discussions highlight the diversity within contemporary Islamic jurisprudence and introduce new nuances to highly-charged concepts such as proselytizing, integration, and multiculturalism.

Peaceful legal and political 'changing of the guards' is taken for granted in developed democracies, but is not evident everywhere. As a relatively new democracy, marred by long periods of military rule, Bangladesh has been encountering serious problems because of a prevailing culture of mistrust, weak governance institutions, constant election manipulation and a peculiar socio-political history, which between 1990 and 2011 led to a unique form of transitional remedy in the form of an unelected neutral 'caretaker covernment' (CTG) during electoral transitions. This book provides a contextual analysis of the CTG mechanism including its inception, operation, manipulation by the government of the day and abrupt demise. It queries whether this constitutional provision, even if presently abolished after overseeing four acceptable general elections, actually remains a crucial tool to safeguard free and fair elections in Bangladesh. Given the backdrop of the culture of mistrust, the author examines whether holding national elections without a CTG, or an umpire of some kind, can settle the issue of credibility of a given government. The book portrays that even the management of elections is a matter of applying pluralist approaches. Considering the historical legacy and contemporary political trajectory of Bangladesh, the cause of deep-rooted mistrust is examined to better understand the rationale for the requirement, emergence and workings of the CTG structure. The book unveils that it is not only the lack of nation-building measures and governments' wish to remain in power at any cost which lay behind the problems that Bangladesh faces today. Part of the problem is also the flawed logic of nation-building on the foundation of Western democratic norms which may be unsuitable in a South Asian cultural environment. Although democratic transitions, on the crutch of the CTG, have been useful in moments of crisis, its abolition creates the need for a new or revised transitional modality - perhaps akin to the CTG ethos - to oversee electoral governance, which will have to be renegotiated by the polity based on the people's will. The book provides a valuable resource for researchers and academics working in the area of constitutional law, democratic transition, legal pluralism and election law.

The relationship between Islamic law and society is an important issue in Iran under the Islamic Republic. Although Islamic law was a pivotal element in the traditional Iranian society, no comprehensive research has been made until today. This is because modern reformers emphasized the lack of rule of law in nineteenth-century Iran. However, a legal system did exist, and Islamic law was a substantial part of it. This is the first book on the relationship between Islamic law and the Iranian society during the nineteenth century. The author explores the legal aspects of urban society in Iran and provides the social context in which political process occurred and examines how authorities applied law in society, how people utilized the law, and how the law regulated society. Based on rich archival sources including court records and private deeds from Qajar Tehran, this book explores how Islamic law functioned in Iranian society. The judicial system, sharia court, and religious endowments (vaqf) are fully discussed, and the role of 'ulama as legal experts is highlighted throughout the book. It challenges nationalist and modernist views on nineteenth-century Iran and provides a unique model in terms of the relationship between Islamic law and society, which is rather different from the Ottoman case. Providing an understanding of this legal system in Iran and its role in society, this book offers a basis for assessing the motives and results of modern reforms as well as the modernist discourse. This book will be of interest to students of Middle Eastern and Iranian Studies.

This in-depth study examines the relation between legal theory (usul al-fiqh) and speculative theology ('ilm al-kalam). It compares the legal theory of four classical jurists who belonged to the same school of law, the Shafi'i school, yet followed three different theological traditions. The aim of this comparison is to understand to what extent, and in what way, the theology of each jurist shaped his choices in legal theory.

A unique collection of studies, the present volume sheds new light on central themes of Ibn Taymiyya's (661/1263-728/1328) and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's (691/1292-751/1350) thought and the relevance of their ideas to diverse Muslim societies. Investigating their positions in Islamic theology, philosophy and law, the contributions discuss a wide range of subjects, e.g. law and order; the divine compulsion of human beings; the eternity of eschatological punishment; the treatment of Sufi terminology; and the proper Islamic attitude towards Christianity. Notably, a section of the book is dedicated to analyzing Ibn Taymiyya's struggle for and against reason as well as his image as a philosopher in contemporary Islamic thought. Several articles present the influential legacy of both thinkers in shaping an Islamic discourse facing the challenges of modernity. This volume will be especially useful for students and scholars of Islamic studies, philosophy, sociology, theology, and history of ideas.