At the time of his death in 1998, at the age of 47, Norman Calder had become the most widely-discussed scholar in his field. This was largely focused on his monograph, Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1993), which boldly challenged existing theories about the origins of Islamic Law. The present volume of twenty-one of his articles and book chapters represents the full richness and diversity of Calder's oeuvre, from his initial doctoral research on Shii Islam to his later more philosophical writings on Sunni hermeneutics, in addition to his numerous studies on early Islamic history and jurisprudence. Calder's pioneering research, which was based on a sensitive reading of medieval texts fully informed by contemporary critical theory, often challenged the established assumptions of the day. He is known in particular for urging a reassessment of widely-held prejudices which underestimated the degree of creativity in medieval Islamic scholarship. Many of the articles in this volume have already become classics for the fields of Muslim jurisprudence and hermeneutics.

In the post-9/11 environment, the figure of the Muslim woman is at the forefront of global politics. Her representation is often articulated within a rights discourse owing much to liberal-secular sensibilities-notions of freedom, equality, rational thinking, individualism, and modernization. Muslim Women's Rights explores how these liberal-secular sensibilities inform, shape, and foreclose public discussion on questions of Islam and gender. The book draws on postcolonial, antiracist, and transnational feminist studies in order to analyze public and legal debates surrounding proposed shari'ah tribunals in Canada. It examines the cultural and epistemological suppositions underlying common assumptions about Islamic laws; explores how these assumptions are informed by the Western progress narrative and women's rights debates; and asks what forms of politics these enable and foreclose. The book assesses the influence of secularism on the ontology, epistemology, and ethics afforded to Islam in the West, and begins to trace possibilities by which Islamic family law might be productively addressed on its own terms. Muslim Women's Rights is a significant contribution to the fields of both Islam and gender and the critical study of secularism.

The increasingly transnational nature of terrorist activities compels the international community to strengthen the legal framework in which counter-terrorism activities should occur at every level, including that of intergovernmental organizations. This unique, timely, and carefully researched monograph examines one such important yet generally under-researched and poorly understood intergovernmental organization, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation ('OIC', formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference). In particular, it analyses in depth its institutional counter-terrorism law-making practice, and the relationship between resultant OIC law and comparable UN norms in furtherance of UN Global Counter-Terrorism Stategy goals. Furthermore, it explores two common (mis)assumptions regarding the OIC, namely whether its internal institutional weaknesses mean that its law-making practice is inconsequential at the intergovernmental level; and whether its self-declared Islamic objectives and nature are irrelevant to its institutional practice or are instead reflected within OIC law. Where significant normative tensions are discerned between OIC law and UN law, the monograph explores not only whether these may be explicable, at least in part, by the OIC's Islamic nature, and objectives, but also whether their corresponding institutional legal orders are conflicting or cooperative in nature, and the resultant implications of these findings for international counter-terrorism law- and policy-making. This monograph is expected to appeal especially to national and intergovernmental counter-terrorism practitioners and policy-makers, as well as to scholars concerned with the interaction between international and Islamic law norms. From the Foreword by Professor Ben Saul, The University of Sydney Dr Samuels book must be commended as an original and insightful contribution to international legal scholarship on the OIC, Islamic law, international law, and counter-terrorism. It fills significant gaps in legal knowledge about the vast investment of international and regional effort that has gone into the global counter-terrorism enterprise over many decades, and which accelerated markedly after 9/11. The scope of the book is ambitious, its subject matter is complex, and its sources are many and diverse. Dr Samuel has deployed an appropriate theoretical and empirical methodology, harnessed an intricate knowledge of the field, and brought a balanced judgement to bear, to bring these issues to life.

This book sets forth the concepts relating to viewpoints concerning life. It identifies the principle behind these concepts and traces each such concept back to its source and origin, whether it emanates from the capitalist-democratic, communist-socialist, or Islamic principle. At the same time, it calls on people to establish bonds with one another, that is, intellectual bonds based on common principles. It also calls on them to distinguish one concept from another so that they can achieve the correct type of advancement and attain the exemplary ideology. First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book is situated in the wider theoretical framework of civil and commercial law in the context of the tensions and conflicts arising between the Islamic law and western legal systems. The book deals with the genre of Mukhtasar in Islamic law and the significance of its emergence in the development and formation of Islamic law. These compositions of Mukhtasar are authored texts by individual jurists claiming independently to personal hermeneutical interpretations in producing and reproducing them. These compositions of Mukhtasar do not simply reproduce the legal rulings of eponyms of schools of law in an abridgement as traditionally it has been understood. Most importantly, the purpose for which they were composed was to provide hermeneutical accounts of the formation of Islamic law incorporating all essential expanded additional elements which have developed over the course of time. The authors of these compositions of Mukhtasar continue the hermeneutical formation of Islamic legal system.

The family is where legal rules presented as part of the Islamic shari`a are most widely applied in the Muslim world. This connection, often differently elaborated by particular social constituencies, can present difficulties to the advocates of law reform. At the same time, the resonance of the issues at which advocacy is targeted creates an opportunity for creative exchange in addressing practical strategies for change. This volume explores the present-day realities of Islamic family law, with particular emphasis on the rights of women, and focusing on law in its living social context as reflected in public opinion and personal experience. A concluding study ranges further afield in order to explore the challenges and potential of 'principles of shari`a' in advocacy on the question of violence against women. This book makes possible a detailed examination of possibilities of, and constraints on, legal reform in the area of Islamic family law in specific contemporary contexts.

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.

The book contributes to understanding the role of religion in the development of democracy in Indonesia - the world's largest Muslim nation.

Scholars, thinkers, and activists around the world are paying increasing attention to a legal reform method that promises to revolutionize the way people think about Islamic law. Known as "The Objectives of the Shari'a" (maqasid al-shari'a), the theory offers a way to derive and apply new Islamic laws using an ancient methodology. The theory identifies core objectives that underlie Islamic law, and then looks at inherited Islamic laws to see whether they meet those objectives. According to the maqasid theory, historical Islamic laws that meet their objectives should be retained, and those that do not-no matter how entrenched in practice or embedded in texts-should be discarded or reformed. Recently, several scholars have questioned the maqasid theory, arguing that it is designed not to reform laws, but to support existing power structures. They warn that adopting the maqasid wholesale would set the reform project back, ensuring that inherited Islamic laws are never fully reformed to agree with contemporary values like gender-egalitarianism and universal human rights. The Objectives of Islamic Law: The Promises and Challenges of the Maqasid al-Shari'a captures the ongoing debate between proponents and skeptics of the maqasid theory. It raises some of the most important issues in Islamic legal debates today, and lays out visions for the future of Islamic law.

This book examines the life of women in the Indonesian province of Aceh, where Islamic law was introduced in 1999. It outlines how women have had to face the formalisation of conservative understandings of sharia law in regulations and new state institutions over the last decade or so, how they have responded to this, forming non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have shaped local discourse on women's rights, equality and status in Islam, and how these NGOs have strategised, demanded reform, and enabled Acehnese women to take active roles in influencing the processes of democratisation and Islamisation that are shaping the province. The book shows that although the formal introduction of Islamic law in Aceh has placed restrictions on women's freedom, paradoxically it has not prevented them from engaging in public life. It argues that the democratisation of Indonesia, which allowed Islamisation to occur, continues to act as an important factor shaping Islamisation's current trajectory; that the introduction of Islamic law has motivated women's NGOs and other elements of civil society to become more involved in wider discussions about the future of sharia in Aceh; and that Indonesia's recent decentralisation policy and growing local Islamism have enabled the emergence of different religious and local adat practices, which do not necessarily correspond to overall national trends.

This book presents an invaluable contribution to the debate on the compatibility of Islam and modernity. It is full of arguments and examples showing how Islam can be understood in line with modern life, human rights, democracy, the rule of law, civil society and pluralism. The three authors come from different countries, represent different gender perspectives and have a Shia, a Sunni and a non-Muslim background respectively which makes the book a unique source of information and inspiration.' - Irmgard Marboe, University of Vienna, AustriaThis well-informed book explains, reflects on and analyzes Islamic law, not only in the classical legal tradition of Sharia, but also its modern, contemporary context. The book explores the role of Islamic law in secular Western nations and reflects on the legal system of Islam in its classical context as applied in its traditional homeland of the Middle East and also in South East Asia. Written by three leading scholars from three different backgrounds: a Muslim in the Sunni tradition, a Muslim in the Shia tradition, and a non-Muslim woman - the book is not only unique, but also enriched by differing insights into Islamic law. Sir William Blair provides the foreword to a book which acknowledges that Islam continues to play a vital role not just in the Middle East but across the wider world, the discussion on which the authors embark is a crucial one. The book starts with an analysis of the nature of Islamic law, its concepts, meaning and sources, as well as its development in different stages of Islamic history. This is followed by accounts of how Islamic law is being practised today. Key modern institutions are discussed, such as the parliament, judiciary, dar al-ifta, political parties, and other important organizations. It continues by analysing some key concepts in our modern times: nation-state, citizenship, ummah, dhimmah (recognition of the status of certain non-Muslims in Islamic states), and the rule of law. The book investigates how in recent times, more and more fatwas are issued collectively rather than emanating from an individual scholar. The authors then evaluate how Islamic law deals with family matters, economics, crime, property and alternative dispute resolution. Lastly, the book revisits certain contemporary issues of debate in Islamic law such as the burqa, halal food, riba (interest) and apostasy. Modern Perspectives on Islamic Law will become a standard scholarly text on Islamic law. Its wide-ranging coverage will appeal to researchers and students of Islamic law, or Islamic studies in general. Legal practitioners will also be interested in the comparative aspects of Islamic law presented in this book. Contents: Foreword by The Honorable Sir William Blair Preface Prologue 1. The Nature of Law, and its Relationship with Religion, in Islam 2. Islamic Law and Institutions 3. Seeing a Western Nation through Muslim Eyes: Citizenship and the Sharia in Modern Nation-states 4. Fatwa and Muftis 5. Islamic Family Law 6. Mediation, Arbitration and Islamic Alternative Dispute Resolution 7. Islamic Law and Economics 8. Property Rights, Inheritance Law and Trusts (waqf) 9. Islamic Criminal Law 10. Contemporary Debates On and Within Islam Epilogue Index

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.

Lawyers, according to Edmund Burke, are bad historians. He was referring to an unwillingness, rather than an inaptitude, on the part of early nineteenth-century English lawyers to concern themselves with the past: for contemporary jurisprudence was a pure and isolated science wherein law appeared as a body of rules, based upon objective criteria, whose nature and very existence were independent of considerations of time and place. Despite the influence of the historical school of Western jurisprudence, Burke's observation is generally valid for Middle East studies. Muslim jurisprudence in its traditional form provides an extreme example of a legal science divorced from historical considerations. Law, in classical Islamic theory, is the revealed will of God, a divinely ordained system preceding, and not preceded by, the Muslim state controlling, but not controlled by, Muslim society. There can thus be no relativistic notion of the law itself evolving as an historical phenomenon closely tied with the progress of society. The increasing number of nations that are largely Muslim or have a Muslim head of state, emphasizes the growing political importance of the Islamic world, and, as a result, the desirability of extending and expanding the understanding and appreciation of their culture and belief systems. Since history counts for much among Muslims and what happened in 632 or 656 is still a live issue, a journalistic familiarity with present conditions is not enough; there must also be some awareness of how the past has molded the present. This book is designed to give the reader a clear picture. But where there are gaps, obscurities, and differences of opinion, these are also indicated.

The current rise of Islamism throughout the Muslim world, Islamists' demand for the establishment of Islamic states, and their destabilizing impact on regional and global orders have raised important questions about the origins of Islamism and the nature of an Islamic state. Beginning with the Iranian revolution of the late 1970s and the establishment of the Islamic Republic to today's rise of ISIS to prominence, it has become increasingly apparent that Islamism is a major global force in the twenty-first century that demands acknowledgment and answers. As a highly-integrated belief system, the Islamic worldview rejects secularism and accounts for a prominent role for religion in the politics and laws of Muslim societies. Islam is primarily a legal framework that covers all aspects of Muslims' individual and communal lives. In this sense, the Islamic state is a logical instrument for managing Muslim societies. Even moderate Muslims who genuinely, but not necessarily vociferously, challenge the extremists' strategies are not dismissive of the political role of Islam and the viability of an Islamic state. However, sectarian and scholastic schisms within Islam that date back to the prophet's demise do undermine any possibility of consensus about the legal, institutional, and policy parameters of the Islamic state. Within its Shi'a sectarian limitations, this book attempts to offer some answers to questions about the nature of the Islamic state. Nearly four decades of experience with the Islamic Republic of Iran offers us some insights into such a state's accomplishments, potentials, and challenges. While the Islamic worldview offers a general framework for governance, this framework is in dire need of modification to be applicable to modern societies. As Iranians have learned, in the realm of practical politics, transcending the restrictive precepts of Islam is the most viable strategy for building a functional Islamic state. Indeed, Islam does provide both doctrinal and practical instruments for transcending these restrictions. This pursuit of pragmatism could potentially offer impressive strategies for governance as long as sectarian, scholastic, and autocratic proclivities of authorities do not derail the rights of the public and their demand for an orderly management of their societies.

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.

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.

The place of Islam in constitutions invites fierce debate from scholars and politicians alike. Many of these debates assume an inherent conflict between constitutional Islam and 'secular' values of liberal democracy and human rights. Using case studies from several Muslim-majority states, this book surveys the history and role of Islam in constitutions. Tracing the origins of constitutional Islam, Dawood Ahmed and Muhammad Zubair Abbasi argue that colonial history and political bargaining were pivotal factors in determining whether a country adopted Islam, and not secularism, in its constitution. Contrary to the common contention that the constitutional incorporation of Islam is generally antithetical to human rights, Ahmed and Abbasi show not only that Islam has been popularly demanded and introduced into constitutions during periods of 'democratization' and 'modernization' but also that constitutional Islamization has frequently been accompanied by an expansion in constitutional human rights.

This book focuses on Islamic family law as interpreted and applied by judges in Europe, Australia and North America. It uses court transcriptions and observations to discuss how the most contentious marriage-related issues - consent and age of spouses, dower, polygamy, and divorce - are adjudicated. The solutions proposed by different legal systems are reviewed , and some broader questions are addressed: how Islamic principles are harmonized with norms based on gender equality, how parties bargain strategically in and out of court, and how Muslim diasporas align their Islamic worldview with a Western normative narrative.

This book examines the interrelationship between law, culture, patriarchy and religion in the context of contemporary Bangladesh. It explores the role of Islam in society and politics generally, and its influence on gender equality in particular. The work focuses on the situation of married women. Taking a socio-legal approach, it analyses the changing nature of the dowry practice and its relation to women's increasing paid labour force activity. Despite anti-dowry legislation, it is argued here that the dowry system continues in the form of the appropriation of wives' income. The work calls for legal recognition of this action and the amendment of the Dowry Prohibition Act 1980 as a result of the changing social realities that are taking place in the lives of Bangladeshi women. An Islamic approach is applied to equality between men and women in addressing and analysing these issues. The book includes international comparisons on gender equality and discusses the role of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Descrimination Against Women (CEDAW), as well as the dowry system in South Asia. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of law and religion, gender studies and international development.

This book, first published in 1988, argues that a close inspection of the development of Hanafite law in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods reveals changes in legal doctrine which were not restricted to civil transactions but also concerned the public law. It focuses in particular on the interrelated areas of property, rent and taxation of arable lands, arguing that changes in the relationship between tax and rent led to a redefinition of the concept of landed property, a concept at the very heart of the Islamic legal system. This title will be of particular interest to students of Islamic history.

The book explores the relationship between Muslims, the Common Law and Shari'ah post-9/11. The book looks at the accommodation of Shari'ah Law within Western Common Law legal traditions and the role of the judiciary, in particular, in drawing boundaries for secular democratic states with Muslim populations who want resolutions to conflicts that also comply with the dictates of their faith. Salim Farrar and Ghena Krayem consider the question of recognition of Shari'ah by looking at how the flexibilities that exists in both the Common Law and Shari'ah provide unexplored avenues for navigation and accommodation. The issue is explored in a comparative context across several jurisdictions and case law is examined in the contexts of family law, business and crime from selected jurisdictions with significant Muslim minority populations including: Australia, Canada, England and Wales, and the United States. The book examines how Muslims and the broader community have framed their claims for recognition against a backdrop of terrorism fears, and how Common Law judiciaries have responded within their constitutional and statutory confines and also within the contemporary contexts of demands for equality, neutrality and universal human rights. Acknowledging the inherent pragmatism, flexibility and values of the Common Law, the authors argue that the controversial issue of accommodation of Shari'ah is not necessarily one that requires the establishment of a separate and parallel legal system.

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.

This volume identifies and elaborates on the significance and functions of the various actors involved in the development of family law in the Middle East. Besides the importance of family law regulations for each individual, family law has become the battleground of political and social contestation. Divided into four parts, the collection presents a general overview and analysis of the development of family law in the region and provides insights into the broader context of family law reform, before offering examples of legal development realised by codification drawn from a selection of Gulf states, Iran, and Egypt. It then goes on to present a thorough analysis of the role of the judiciary in the process of lawmaking, before discussing ways the parties themselves may have shaped and do shape the law. Including contributions from leading authors of Middle Eastern law, this timely volume brings together many isolated aspects of legal development and offers a comprehensive picture on this topical subject. It will be of interest to scholars and academics of family law and religion.

The Prophet Muhammad's reported traditions have evolved significantly to affect the social, cultural, and political lives of all Muslims. Though centuries of scholarship were spent on the authentication and trustworthiness of the narrators, there has been less study focused on the contents of these narratives, known as Hadith or Sunnah, and their corroboration by the Qur`an. This book is a first step in a comprehensive attempt to contrast Hadith with the Qur`an in order to uncover some of the unjust practices by Muslims concerning women and gender issues. Using specific examples the author helps the reader appreciate and understand the magnitude of the problem. It is argued that the human rights and the human development of Muslim women will not progress in a meaningful and sustainable manner until the Hadith is re-examined in a fresh new approach from within the Islamic framework, shifting the discourse in understanding Islam from a dogmatic religious law to a religio-moral rational worldview. The author argues that such re-examination requires the involvement of women in order to affirm their authority in exegetical and practical leadership within Muslim societies, and she encourages Muslim women to stand up for their rights to effect change in understanding the role of sunnah in their own life.

This book underlines the mutability of Islamic law and attempts to relate its substantive and institutional varieties and transformations to social, political, economic and other historical circumstances. The studies in the book range from discussion of the received wisdom in Islamic law to studies of legal institutions and the theoretical means employed by Islamic law for the accommodation of changing historical circumstances. First published in 1988.