This volume critically analyses Muslim Personal Law (MPL) in India and offers an alternative perspective to look at MPL and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) debate. Tracing the historical origins of this legal mechanism and its subsequent political manifestations, it highlights the complex nature of MPL as a sociological phenomenon, driven by context-specific social norms and cultural values. With expert contributions, it discusses wide-ranging themes and issues including MPL reforms and human rights; decoding of UCC in India; the contentious Triple Talaq bill and MPL; the Shah Bano case; Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence) in postcolonial India; women's equality and family laws; and MPL in the media discourse in India. The volume highlights that although MPL is inextricably linked to Sharia, it does not necessarily determine the everyday customs and local practices of Muslim communities in India This topical book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of law and jurisprudence, political studies, Islamic studies, Muslim Personal Law, history, multiculturalism, South Asian studies, sociology of religion, sociology of law and family law. It will also be useful to practitioners, policymakers, law professionals and journalists.

This book examines the Santillana Codes, legal instruments which form a distinct class of uniquely African civil codes and which are still in force today in a legal arc that extends from the Maghreb to the Sahel. Stigall presents the history of Santillana's seminal legislative effort and provides a comparative analysis of the substance of those codes, illuminating commonalities between Islamic law and European legal systems.

No corporation is enthusiastic about paying tax, yet Islamic banks in Indonesia voluntarily pay corporate zakat. Why? The book analyzes corporate zakat norms and practices in Indonesia by investigating how Muslim jurists have interpreted shari'a of zakat and how these have been imposed through the legislative and regulatory framework. It also presents original case studies based on sociolegal field research on the reception of the new obligations in the Islamic banks that choose to pay - and choose not to pay - what is effectively a new tax. The book argues that the dynamics of shari'a interpretation, imposition, and compliance in Indonesia are too complex to be defined using the binaries of the religious versus the secular, public versus private, or tradition versus modernity. The corporate zakat context has revitalized the existing governance strategy in Islamic legal tradition and created a shared Islamic law vision between Islam and the state. Consequently, this fusion generates a mixed legal and religious consciousness toward corporate zakat. Addressing broader discussions on Islamic law and modernity, the book will be of interest to academics working on Asian and Comparative Law, sociolegal studies, anthropology of Indonesia, business studies of the Islamic world, Islamic/shari'a economics, Islamic law and politics, Islamic legal studies, Muslim society and Islam in Southeast Asia.

This book explores the legal dimension of the Islamic State, an aspect which has hitherto been neglected in the literature. ISIS' dystopian experience, intended as a short-lived territorial and political governance, has been analyzed from multiple points of view, including the geopolitical, social and religious ones. However, its legal dimension has never been properly dealt with in a comprehensive way, assuming as a point of reference both the Islamic and the Western legal tradition. This book analyzes ISIS as the expression of a potential though never fully realized legal order. The book does not describe ISIS' possible classifications according to the standards and the criteria of international law, such as its possible statehood or proto-statehood, issues that are however touched upon. Rather, it analyzes ISIS' own legal awareness, based on the group's literary materials, which show a considerable amount of juridical work. Such material, mainly propagandistic in its nature, is essential in understanding which kind of legal order ISIS aimed at establishing. The book will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of Law, International Relations, Political Sciences, Terrorism Studies, Religion and Middle Eastern Studies.

In The Middle Path of Moderation in Islam, leading Islamic law expert Mohammad Hashim Kamali examines the concept of wasatiyyah, or moderation, arguing that scholars, religious communities, and policy circles alike must have access to this governing principle that drives the silent majority of Muslims, rather than focusing on the extremist fringe. Kamali explores wasatiyyah in both historical/conceptual terms and in contemporary/practical terms. Tracing the definition and scope of the concept from the foundational sources of Islam, the Qu'ran and Hadith, he demonstrates that wasatiyyah has a long and well-developed history in Islamic law and applies the concept to contemporary issues of global policy, such as justice, women's rights, environmental and financial balance, and globalization. Framing his work as an open dialogue against a now-decades long formulation of the arguably destructive Huntingtonian "clash of civilizations" thesis as well as the public rhetoric of fear of Muslim extremism since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Kamali connects historical conceptions of wasatiyyah to the themes of state and international law, governance, and cultural maladies in the Muslim world and beyond. Both a descriptive and prescriptive meditation on a key but often neglected principle of Islam, The Middle Path of Moderation in Islam provides insight into an idea that is in the strategic interest of the West both to show and practice for themselves and to recognize in Muslim countries.

How can Muslims strike a balance between religious commitments and their civic identity as citizens in Western liberal states? Hassan examines the development of a contemporary internal Muslim debate on the production of a new form of Islamic jurisprudence, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat, or the jurisprudence of Muslim minorities. Three key trends are identified in this debate: the puritan literalist trend, the traditionalist trend and the renewal trend. The literalists argue that Muslim minorities should disassociate themselves from non-Muslims and confine their loyalty to their fellow Muslims. The traditionalists maintain that Muslim minorities can live in non-Muslim lands but via exceptional rules and conditional fatwas. The renewal trend asserts the need for a new category of jurisprudence with a new methodological framework that normalizes and empowers Muslim minority life in non-Muslim society. The study delineates these trends in detail and investigates their background, development and current conditions with special focus on the renewal trend and the discourse of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling political Islamists of Turkey since 2002, has been using the doctrine of necessity to legitimize human rights violations. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, founder of the AKP and leader of the political Islamists, demands unconditional obedience and full control of the state. Under his leadership, the AKP government has shut down all opposing media, schools and universities and put thousands of people in prisons based on a manipulation of the necessity doctrine. In the political context, hardships are interpreted as obstacles in the way of the political Islamists holding absolute power in the state. Therefore, they use this "necessity" concept as a means to preserve their political power against all potential threats after taking full control of the state. According to the political Islamists, minority groups can be sacrificed for the benefit of the majority. Their properties can be usurped and their lives can be terminated. In moderate Islamic understanding, the state and the ruler are in the service of Muslims, not the other way around. For political Islamists, the state and the ruler (the caliph) are considered so sacred that they need to be protected against all opponents. In order to protect the state against internal and external "infidels" the caliph can resort to unlawful means because the necessity doctrine makes the forbidden things permissible. In this book, the author analyzes the concept of necessity and its exploitation by the political Islamists.

This book provides a critique of current international law-making and draws on a set of principles from Persian philosophers to present an alternative to influence the development of international law-making procedure. The work conceptualizes a substantive notion of democracy in order to regulate international law-making mechanisms under a set of principles developed between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries in Persia. What the author here names 'democratic egalitarian multilateralism' is founded on: the idea of 'egalitarian law' by Suhrawardi, the account of 'substantial motion' by Mulla Sadra, and the ideal of 'intercultural dialectical democracy' developed by Rumi. Following a discussion of the conceptual flaws of the chartered and customary sources of international law, it is argued that 'democratic egalitarian multilateralism' could be a source for a set of principles to regulate the procedures through which international treaties are made as well as a criterion for customary international law-ascertainment. Presenting an alternative, drawn from a less dominant culture, to the established ideas of international law-making the book will be essential reading for researchers and academics working in public international law, history of law, legal theory, comparative legal theory, Islamic law, and history.

The book ties together much of the existing work on the history of oil and gas regulation in Iran and builds on that foundation to propose a coherent and balanced approach within the framework of the NCC.

This book provides valuable insights into the practical challenges faced by the nascent Islamic finance industry and compares the Australian experience to developments in the UK. It contributes to a greater understanding of how Muslims living as a minority in Australia and the UK negotiate Islamic doctrine in secular societies by focusing on one aspect of this negotiation, namely the prohibition of riba. There is little debate in the Islamic tradition on the prohibition of riba. The differences, however, lie in the interpretation of riba and the question of how Muslims live in a society that is heavily reliant on interest and conventional banking, yet at the same time adhere to Islamic guidelines. Through the words of religious leaders, Muslim professionals and university students, Imran Lum provides real accounts of how Muslims in Australia and the UK practically deal with conventional banking and finance products such as home loans, savings accounts and credit cards. He also explores Muslim attitudes towards Islamic finance and queries whether religion is the sole determining factor when it comes to its uptake. Drawing on his own unique experience as a practitioner responsible for growing an Islamic business in a conventional bank, Lum provides a firsthand account of the complexities associated with structuring Islamic finance products that are not only sharia compliant but also competitive in a non-Muslim jurisdiction. Using sukuk bonds as a case study, he highlights the tangible and non-tangible barriers to product development, such as tax and regulatory requirements and the rise of Islamophobia. Combining academic and industry experience, Lum unpacks the relationship of Islamic finance with Muslim identity construction in the West and how certain modalities of religiosity can lead to an uptake of Islamic finance, while others can lead to its rejection.

This book explores how the unique historical development of Islamic Shari'a criminal law alongside English common law in northern Nigeria has created a hybridised criminal legal system through a pluralist dynamic of mutual accommodation. It studies how this system may potentially be accommodated by the International Criminal Court. The work examines how this could be accommodated through the current understanding and operation of complementarity, and that it could ultimately prove to be preferable in encouraging the Shari'a courts to exercise criminal justice over the radical insurgents in northern Nigeria. These courts would have the unprecedented ability to combine binding adjudicative judgments together with religious interpretation and guidance, which can directly combat the predominantly unchallenged domain of ideology by extremist actors. It is submitted that these pluralist perspectives are timely and welcome, given the undeniably Western European foundations of modern International Criminal Law. In exploring such potential avenues, our shared understanding of modern international criminal justice is widened to necessarily include other stakeholders beyond its Western founders. It is the aim and hope that such interactions and engagements with non-Western traditions and cultures will lead to a greater shared ownership of the international criminal justice project, which will only strengthen the global fight against impunity. The book will be essential reading for academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of International Criminal Law, Legal Pluralism, Islamic Shari'a Law, Nigeria, and religiously-inspired violence.

This book explores the ways in which Muslim communities across the Indian Ocean world produced and shaped Islamic law and its texts, ideas and practices in their local, regional, imperial, national, and transregional contexts. With a focus on the production and transmission of Islamic law in the Indian Ocean, the chapters in this book draw from and add to recent discourses on the legal histories and legal anthropologies of the Indian Ocean rim as well as to the conversations on global Islamic circulations, legal history and anthropology of the Indian Ocean. This book will be of interest to scholars of Islamic Studies, Indian Ocean Studies, Legal History and Legal Anthropology, Area Studies of South and Southeast Asia and East Africa.

Presents a highly valuable approach to a severely under-researched area;

This book analyses the general interaction between international law and Islamic law in the Muslim world today. It interrogates factors that often form the root of the tension between the two legal regimes. Literalist interpretations of Islamic law and the modern international law's disposition that does not give due consideration to differences among cultures and civilizations are some of these factors. This work examines the Saudi Arabia textualist approach to the two primary sources of law in Islam, the Qur'an and Sunnah, and argues that a liberal approach of interpretation has become sine qua non especially now that myriad issues are confronting the Muslim world generally and Saudi Arabia in particular. Similarly, globalization has generated an unprecedented multi-culturalism, legal-pluralism, and trans-border interactions in socio-economic and political relations. Therefore, Saudi Arabia, as the bastion of Islam and Islamic nations, is faced with the imperative of adopting a liberal approach to interpretation of Islamic law, with a view to accommodating a wide spectrum of other laws and cultures. The book provides a timely examination of the issue of modern Saudi Arabia, Islamic legal order vis-a-vis the contemporary concept of international law and international relations in specific areas such as international human rights law and trans-national economic matters. As such it will be of interest to academics and researchers working in Islamic law, international and comparative law, human rights law, and law and religion.

Islamic State's Online Activity and Responses provides a unique examination of Islamic State's online activity at the peak of its "golden age" between 2014 and 2017 and evaluates some of the principal responses to this phenomenon. Featuring contributions from experts across a range of disciplines, the volume examines a variety of aspects of IS's online activity, including their strategic objectives, the content and nature of their magazines and videos, and their online targeting of females and depiction of children. It also details and analyses responses to IS's online activity - from content moderation and account suspensions to informal counter-messaging and disrupting terrorist financing - and explores the possible impact of technological developments, such as decentralised and peer-to-peer networks, going forward. Platforms discussed include dedicated jihadi forums, major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and newer services, including Twister. Islamic State's Online Activity and Responses is essential reading for researchers, students, policymakers, and all those interested in the contemporary challenges posed by online terrorist propaganda and radicalisation. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.

During the 20th century many countries embarked on a process of constitutional secularization by which the role of religion gradually became limited. Yet, by the late 20th century, and increasingly following the end of the Cold War, this development began to be challenged. This book examines the return of religion in constitutions through the concept of constitutional de-secularization. It places this phenomenon in the context of the constitutional memory of the countries in which it has taken place and critically examines it against the development and standards of constitutionalism, as the prevailing constitutional legal and political theory. Central to this analysis is the impact of constitutional de-secularization on the regulation of equality in liberty, that is, both the regulation of constitutional rights and the scope for equality of those who are granted such rights. The book argues that equal liberty forms an essential part of constitutionalism as a theory, and that constitutionalism therefore entails a continuous development towards expanding it. The first and second part of the book presents a conceptual framework for the study of constitutional de-secularization. The third part presents and analyses three cases of constitutional de-secularization in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. The book will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers interested in constitutional history and theory, and the role of religion in law and its compatibility with human rights.

This handbook is a detailed reference source comprising original articles covering the origins, history, theory and practice of Islamic law. The handbook starts out by dealing with the question of what type of law is Islamic law and includes a critical analysis of the pedagogical approaches to studying and analysing Islamic law as a discipline. The handbook covers a broad range of issues, including the role of ethics in Islamic jurisprudence, the mechanics and processes of interpretation, the purposes and objectives of Islamic law, constitutional law and secularism, gender, bioethics, Muslim minorities in the West, jihad and terrorism. Previous publications on this topic have approached Islamic law from a variety of disciplinary and pedagogical perspectives. One of the original features of this handbook is that it treats Islamic law as a legal discipline by taking into account the historical functions and processes of legal cultures and the patterns of legal thought. With contributions from a selection of highly regarded and leading scholars in this field, the Routledge Handbook of Islamic Law is an essential resource for students and scholars who are interested in the field of Islamic Law.

Much has been written on specific religious legal systems, yet substantial comparative studies that strive to compare systems, identifying their analogies and differences, have been relatively few. This absence undermines the capacity to understand religions and becomes particularly serious when the faithful of these religions live together in the same geographical space, as happens today with increasing frequency. Both interreligious dialogue and dialogue between States and religions presuppose a set of data and information that only comparative research can provide. This book seeks to address this gap in the literature by presenting a comparative analysis of Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Hindu laws and traditions. Divided into five parts, the first part of the book offers the historical background for the legal analysis that is developed in the subsequent parts. Part II deals with the sources of law in the four religions under discussion. Part III addresses the dynamics of belonging and status, and Part IV looks at issues relating to the conclusion of marriage and its dissolution. The fifth and final part discusses how each religion views the legal other. Each part concludes with exploring what we can learn from a comparative examination of the topic that is dealt with in that part. Written by leading experts in the field, this book presents a clear and comprehensive picture of key religious legal systems along with a substantial bibliography. It provides a state of the art overview of scholarship in this area accompanied by a critical evaluation. As such, it will be an invaluable resource for all those concerned with religious legal systems, multiculturalism and comparative law.

Islam encourages business and financial transactions as a way of securing the basic needs for all human beings, but these need to be conducted in accordance with the principles contained in the Qur'an and Sunnah. However, these legal concepts are not classified subject-wise, and the verses on commercial law, like all other topics, are scattered throughout the Qur'an, making it difficult for readers to gain a full understanding of the topic. This, therefore, is the first comprehensive book to demystify Islamic contract law and specifically Islamic financial contracts, and to examine its roots and history. The book is written in a clear style to allow for a greater understanding of the more challenging and misunderstood areas pertaining to Islamic business and financial contracts. It also contributes a series of chapters which address the market niche and need, concerning Shariah compliance for Islamic financial products and services. The book is divided into 16 chapters in order to provide a holistic and thorough overview of Islamic law of contract. It covers the objections and misconceptions surrounding Islamic business and financial contracts. It also includes the key features and guiding principles of Islamic law of contract and offers technical know-how, illustrating the concept of formation of a contract, as well as the essential elements of a valid contract. The authors also offer a discussion on the system of options under Islamic business and financial contracts and potential solutions to breach of contracts. The book will serve as a handy reference for scholars and students of Islamic business and finance and Islamic commercial law and will also be beneficial for practitioners as well as legal and judicial officers. It will open new doors for further research in the field of Islamic financial contracts.

Using the methodology of modern scholars in the fields of Arabic lexicography, linguistics, and psychoanalysis, Tunisian feminist scholar Olfa Youssef investigates the rulings about inheritance, marriage, and homosexuality in the Qur'anic text itself and compares them with the interpretations provided by male Muslim theologians and legal scholars from medieval times to the present. In this book, she makes five central arguments: (1) There is a discrepancy between the layered signification in the Qur'anic text itself and the sutured explanations by religious scholars which have been enacted into law in many Muslim countries today; (2) the plurality of meanings is the quintessential essence of the Qur'an as evidenced in the absence of any sura over which there was unanimous agreement among Muslim scholars; (3) when male privilege was at stake, male legal scholars, to protect their own interests, ignored the divine text and based their rulings on human consensus; (4) Muslim medieval views on gender and homosexuality were more tolerant than contemporary ones; and finally (5), preferring indetermination and perplexity over the finality and certainties found in the judgements of male theologians, Youssef argues that only God knows the Qur'an's true meaning. Her job as a Muslim female scholar is only to raise questions over those human interpretations that many Muslim societies mistake for divine will.

This book focuses on constitutional reform in Indonesia (1999-2002) from the perspective of shari'a. Since the end of Soeharto's New Order government in 1998, Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, has amended the 1945 Constitution four times. Soeharto's departure also opened the way for several Muslim groups and political parties to propose the introduction of shari'a into the Constitution. This book poses the crucial question implicit in the amendments to the 1945 Constitution: can shari'a and democratic constitutionalism be fused without compromising on human rights, the rule of law, and religious liberty? The contributions of Islamic political parties in Indonesia to the process and the outcome of the amendments, by adopting a substantive shari'a approach, reflect the ability to deal with a modern Constitution without abandoning the principles and the objectives of shari'a. The study reveals one possible picture of how Islam and constitutionalism can co-exist in the same vision, not without risk of tension, but with the possibility of success.

In February 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, delivered a public lecture in which he stated that it "seem ed] unavoidable" that certain aspects of Islamic law (Shari'a) would be recognized and incorporated into British law. The comments provoked outrage from sections of the public who viewed any recognition of Shari'a law in Britain with alarm. In July 2008 Lord Phillips, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, weighed into the fray. He praised the Archbishop's speech and gave qualified support for Shari'a principles to govern certain family and civil disputes.
Responding to the polarized debate that followed these lectures, this is a collection of short essays written by distinguished and prominent scholars addressing the question of the accommodation of Shari'a within the legal systems of the liberal-democratic West. The matters raised in the two 2008 lectures provide a springboard for lively discussion, criticism and debate on both the specific question of religious/cultural accommodation by the law and the wider issues of multiculturalism, equality before the law and the desirability of parallel jurisdictions for particular faith communities.
Leading scholars from a range of countries and academic disciplines, and representing different political viewpoints and faith traditions explore the complex issues surrounding the legal recognition of religious faith in a multicultural society.
The volume aims to stimulate further thought on a complex issue, and to open up new pathways for policymakers and civil society institutions grappling with the relationship between Shari'a and Western legal systems.

This book is an anthropologist's field study of the new court set up in Singapore to deal with matrimonial suits (chiefly divorce) among Muslims. The study is based on careful observation of the court in action, and analyses in detail the relationship between the reformist aims of the new law and the values and expectations of litigants. The book takes its departure from the argument developed in Dr Djamour's earlier work, Malay Kinship and Mamage in Singapore (Athlone Press, 1959; paperback edition 1965), and discusses the effect of recent attempts to promote the stability of Muslim marriage. Social scientists, lawyers, students of Islam, and those interested in Malayan problems will find in this book the same qualities that distinguished Dr Djamour's previous study -- lively and sympathetic descriptive powers joined to an ability for clear factual analysis.

It is said that the COVID-19 pandemic has turned back the poverty clock. As such, there is a need to have social mechanisms put in place to provide relief to those who are affected in this regard. Islamic social finance consists of tools and institutions that could be used to alleviate poverty. This book explores the impact of COVID-19 on Islamic finance to better understand the effectiveness of Islamic social finance in helping those who have been affected by poverty overnight due to the halt in all major economic activities in the context of the pandemic. Since the struggle against poverty in each country will be different, the book attempts to shed light on the experiences of different countries by presenting successful models of Islamic social finance. The book first looks at poverty and COVID-19 before delving into the role of Islamic social financial institutions and how they have risen against COVID-19. The book concludes by examining the impact of COVID-19 on Islamic microfinance. This book is the first of its kind on the subject of COVID-19, and it intends to bridge the gap in the literature.