This book explores the contentious topic of women's rights in Muslim-majority countries, with a specific focus on Iran and the Iranian women's movement from 1906 to the present. The work contextualizes the authorial self through the use of personal narrative and interviews. A new critique of Islamic law is produced through an in-depth study of the Iranian Constitution, civil and criminal codes. The work presents a novel reconceptualization of the term "Islamic feminism" by revisiting the arguments of various scholars and through analysis of interviews with Iranian women's rights activists. It is contended that the feminist movements can play a critical role in Islamic law reform and consequently the eventual implementation of international human rights law in Muslim-majority countries. What emerges from this study is not only a feminist critique of two major regimes of law, but also the identification of possibilities for reform in the future. The study transitions from the Iranian national context to the international by way of a comparative legal study of international human rights laws and Islamic laws. The book will appeal both to academics and human rights practitioners.

By pairing a scholar of Islamic law with a scholar of Jewish law, a unique dynamic is created, and new perspectives are made possible. These new perspectives not only enable an understanding of the other's legal tradition, but most saliently, they offer new insights into one's own legal tradition, shedding light on what had previously been assumed to be outside the scope of analytic vision. In the course of this volume, scholars come together to examine such issues as judicial authority, the legal policing of female sexuality, and the status of those who stand outside one's own tradition. Whether for the pursuit of advanced scholarship, pedagogic innovation in the classroom, or simply a greater appreciation of how to live in a multi-faith, post-secular world, these encounters are richly-stimulating, demonstrating how legal tradition can be used as a common site for developing discussions and opening up diverse approaches to questions about law, politics, and community. Islamic and Jewish Legal Reasoning offers a truly incisive model for considering the good, the right and the legal in our societies today.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Islamic law is one of the major legal systems in the world today, yet it is often misunderstood, particularly in the West. It is applicable in different forms as part of state law in countries across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, and also has a strong influence on Muslim communities throughout the Western world. This Very Short Introduction provides an authoritative perspective on the evolution and nature of Islamic law. Mashood A. Baderin considers its theory, covering the history and nature of Islamic jurisprudence; its scope, covering Family Law, Inheritance Law, Financial Law, Penal Law, and International Law; and, finally, its practice. He takes into account both classical and modern scholarly perspectives in examining the various facets of Islamic law, to provide an overview of this key legal system. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Muslim Qur'anic interpretation today is beset by tensions. Tensions between localising and globalising forces; tensions between hierarchical and egalitarian social ideals; and tensions between the quest for new approaches and the claim for authority raised by defenders of exegetical traditions. It is this complex web of power structures, local as well as global, that this book seeks to elucidate. This book provides a fresh perspective on present-day Qur'anic interpretations by analysing the historical, social and political dimensions in which they take place, the ways in which they are performed and the media through which they are transmitted. Besides discussing the persistence of exegetical traditions and the emergence of new paradigms, it examines the structural conditions in which these processes occur. Languages, nation states, global human rights discourses and intra-Islamic divisions all shape the nature of interpretive endeavours and frequently fuel conflicts over the correct understanding of the Qur'an. This book contains more than twenty detailed case studies of recent Qur'anic interpretations, based on translated texts that cover a variety of languages, regions, media, genres, approaches, authors and target groups. They are integrated into the chapters, bring their arguments to life and stimulate fundamental reflections on the authority of the text and the authority of its interpreters.

Al-Qa?i al-Nu?man was the chief legal theorist and ideologue of the North African Fatimid dynasty in the tenth century. This translation makes available in English for the first time his major work on Islamic legal theory, which presents a legal model in support of the Fatimids' principle of legitimate rule over the Islamic community. Composed as part of a grand project to establish the theoretical bases of the official Fatimid legal school, Disagreements of the Jurists expounds a distinctly Shi?i system of hermeneutics, which refutes the methods of legal interpretation adopted by Sunni jurists. The work begins with a discussion of the historical causes of jurisprudential divergence in the first Islamic centuries, and goes on to address, point by point, the specific interpretive methods of Sunni legal theory, arguing that they are both illegitimate and ineffective. While its immediate mission is to pave the foundation of the legal Isma?ili tradition, the text also preserves several Islamic legal theoretical works no longer extant--including Ibn Dawud's manual, al-Wu?ul ila ma?rifat al-u?ul--and thus throws light on a critical stage in the historical development of Islamic legal theory (u?ul al-fiqh) that would otherwise be lost to history.

This book traces the emergence and development of the idea of literal meaning in Islamic legal hermeneutics. Literal meaning is what a text means in itself, regardless of what its author intends to convey or the reader understands to be its message. As Islamic law is based on the central texts of Islam, the idea of a literal meaning that rules over human attempts to understand God's message has resulted in a series of debates amongst modern Muslim legal theorists. In this reading of Islamic legal hermeneutics, Robert Gleave explores various competing notions of literal meaning, linked to both theological doctrine and historical developments, together with insights from modern semantic and pragmatic philosophers. It focuses on Islamic legal writings, with reference to Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) and Arabic rhetorical works. It describes Muslim debates through the lens of modern Western linguistic philosophy, opening the topic up for Western scholars.

This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the contemporary study of Islamic law and a critical analysis of its deficiencies. Written by outstanding senior and emerging scholars in their fields, it offers an innovative historiographical examination of the field of Islamic law and an ideal introduction to key personalities and concepts. While capturing the state of contemporary Islamic legal studies by chronicling how far the field has come, the Handbook also explains why certain debates recur and indicates fundamental gaps in our knowledge. Each chapter presents bold new avenues for research and will help readers appreciate the contested nature of key concepts and topics in Islamic law. This Handbook will be a major reference work for scholars and students of Islam and Islamic law for years to come.

"Islamic Commercial Law: An Analysis of Futures and Options" is a ground-breaking study, written by a renowned scholar in the field of Islamic law, Prof M. H. Kamali, focusing on options and futures as trading tools, exploring their validity from an Islamic point of view. In this work, Prof M. H. Kamali advances a new perspective on the issue of futures and options based on an interpretation of the Qur'an and the Sunna and referring to the principle of "maslaha" (consideration of public interest) as enshrined in the Sharia.---"Islamic Commercial Law" consists of three parts. Part One is devoted to the description of futures trading and the understanding of operational procedures of futures and futures markets. Part Two investigates the issue of permissibility of futures trading in Islamic law and the underlying questions of risk-taking and speculation, which are of central concern to the topic. Part Three is devoted to an analysis of options. Prof M. H. Kamali concludes this work by providing the most advisable approach to commercial speculation in futures and options, especially the one that most serves the public interest as enshrined in Sharia. So as to aid the reader's understanding of this topic, the author also includes a helpful glossary of all technical Arabic terms that appear in this work. Prof M. H. Kamali's "Islamic Commercial Law" is recommended reading for anyone working on Islamic law, comparative law, or Islamic banking, and is an essential contribution to the topic of Islamic commercial law.

A very accessible and concise guide to Islamic finance Contracts and Deals in Islamic Finance provides a clear breakdown of Islamic financial contracts and deal structures for beginners. The embedded requirements within selected Islamic financial contracts, such as risk weightage, capital structures, creations of cash flows, and balance sheets, are explained fully to provide a solid understanding of the backbone of the industry. Aimed primarily at beginners and those with a background in conventional banking, this book guides readers through the major contracts, how they're applied, and how to discern a contract's legitimacy. Case studies and interviews with bankers and global regulators provide real-life examples of contract application, and the author's own experiences provide deep insight into the everyday issues that arise. Ancillary instructor's materials include PowerPoint slides and lecture notes that facilitate use in the classroom. Literature describing the application of Islamic financial contracts is few and far between, and those providing a basic breakdown of these contracts and questioning their validity are rarer still. This book is the first of its kind, offering a basic approach to understanding Islamic contracts, designed for the true beginner. * Understand the current contracts applied in Islamic banking * Learn how contracts are applied across different jurisdictions * Identify illegitimate contracts and those not in the spirit of Shariah law * Examine the current economic realities surrounding Islamic finance By highlighting the underlying themes in Islamic finance and assessing the current practices, this book gives readers the solid understanding and up-to-date perspective that form a solid foundation upon which successful Islamic finance is practiced. For a solid introduction to the Islamic finance industry, Contracts and Deals in Islamic Finance is an accessible, practical guide.

This book looks at how Islamic law was practiced in Russia from the conquest of the empire's first Muslim territories in the mid-1500s to the Russian Revolution of 1917, when the empire's Muslim population had exceeded 20 million. It focuses on the training of Russian Muslim jurists, the debates over legal authority within Muslim communities and the relationship between Islamic law and 'customary' law. Based upon difficult to access sources written in a variety of languages (Arabic, Chaghatay, Kazakh, Persian, Tatar), it offers scholars of Russian history, Islamic history and colonial history an account of Islamic law in Russia of the same quality and detail as the scholarship currently available on Islam in the British and French colonial empires.

In "Freedom, Equality and Justice in Islam," M H Kamali presents the reader with an analysis of the three concepts of freedom, equality and justice from an Islamic point of view and their manifestations in the religious, social, legal and political fields. The author discusses the evidence to be found for these concepts in the Qur'an and Sunna, and reviews the interpretations of the earlier schools of law. The work also looks at more recent contributions by Muslim jurists who have advanced fresh interpretations of freedom, equality and justice in the light of the changing realities of contemporary Muslim societies. "Freedom, Equality and Justice in Islam" is part of a series dedicated to the fundamental rights and liberties in Islam and should be read in conjunction with "The Dignity of Man: An Islamic Perspective" and "Freedom of Expression in Islam."

"The Dignity of Man: An Islamic Perspective" provides the most detailed study to date on the subject of the dignity of man from the perspective of Islam. M H Kamali sets out the proclamations on human dignity found in the Qur'an and then discusses topics pertaining to or resulting from human dignity: the physical and spiritual nobility of man; God's love for humanity; the sanctity of life; and the necessity for freedom, equality and accountability. Finally, the author examines the measures that the "Shariah" has taken to protect human dignity and to promote it in social interaction. The discussion is here presented in the light of the debate on the universality of human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This book goes a long way towards exploring an alternative to Western concepts of human rights. "The Dignity of Man: An Islamic Perspective" is part of a series of studies on fundamental rights and liberties in Islam and should be read with its companion volumes of "Freedom,"" Equality and Justice in Islam," and "Freedom of Expression in Islam,"

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, British rule transformed the relationship between law, society, and the state in South Asia. But qazis and muftis, alongside ordinary people without formal training in law, fought back as the colonial system in India sidelined Islamic legal experts. They petitioned the East India Company for employment, lobbied imperial legislators for recognition, and built robust institutions to serve their communities. By bringing legal debates into the public sphere, they resisted the colonial state's authority over personal law and rejected legal codification by embracing flexibility and possibility. With postcards, letters, and telegrams, they made everyday Islamic law vibrant and resilient and challenged the hegemony of the Anglo-Indian legal system. Following these developments from the beginning of the Raj through independence, Elizabeth Lhost rejects narratives of stagnation and decline to show how an unexpected coterie of scholars, practitioners, and ordinary individuals negotiated the contests and challenges of colonial legal change. The rich archive of unpublished fatwa files, qazi notebooks, and legal documents they left behind chronicles their efforts to make Islamic law relevant for everyday life, even beyond colonial courtrooms and the confines of family law. Lhost shows how ordinary Muslims shaped colonial legal life and how their diversity and difference have contributed to contemporary debates about religion, law, pluralism, and democracy in South Asia and beyond.

"This engagingly written study illuminates the workings of Islamic courts and the politics and meanings of Muslim identity in one of Asia's most important 'new tigers.' While elucidating the dynamics of Muslim families and family law, Peletz provides dazzling insights into Malay-Muslim subjectivities and notions of gender, sexuality, and modernity. The result is an intellectual tour de force that should be read by anyone and everyone interested in Islam, democracy, civil society, and the thorny question of just what, in political and sexual terms, it means to be modern."--Robert W. Hefner, author of "Civil Islam"

"With one out of five people in the world subject to Islamic law this important study of the Malaysian variant is a genuine milestone in our understanding of Muslim law and society. It challenges our appreciation of the power relations between men and women and of the politics of law in building a modern state. This is law not on the books but in daily life. The insights afforded here are central to the broader role Islamic law is playing in the lives of the whole world."--Lawrence Rosen, Princeton University

"This is at once Michael Peletz's most sophisticated and most ambitious book. He is concerned with at least three huge projects: the Islamic resurgence, the Islamic legal system, and cultural politics. This is an evocative, often brilliant book that shows how cosmopolitan politics engineered from Kuala Lumpur have produced a contradictory notion of Asian values that poses an opaque but imminent danger."--Bruce Lawrence, author of "Shattering the Myth: Islam Beyond Violence"

"Based on impressive fieldwork and archival research, this is the first full-lengthtreatment of Islamic courts in contemporary Malaysia. It makes the important point that, far from being antiquated and out of touch, Islamic courts are helping to make a 'modern' Malaysia."--James Piscatori, coeditor of "Muslim Politics"

Dieses Buch beschaftigt sich auf der hermeneutisch-interpretativen Ebene mit dem Verhaltnis zwischen dem Text und dem Kontext. Die Grundlage dazu bilden die Debatten, die infolge der gesellschaftlichen Umbruche in der bosnisch-herzegowinischen Gesellschaft im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts. zur Frage der Deutung und Anwendung der Scharia gefuhrt wurden. Der Autor identifiziert und untersucht dabei alle wesentlichen Elemente und Charakteristika, Reichweiten und Einschrankungen der gesellschaftlichen, politischen, rechtlichen und theologischen Verortung der Scharia im gesamtgesellschaftlichen Kontext eines europaischen Landes. Vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwartigen Diskussionen uber die Integration der Muslime in die europaischen Gesellschaften ist diese Frage im hiesigen Kontext von grosser Relevanz.

Triple talaq, or talaq-e-bidat, is one of the most debated issues not only in India but also in other countries having a sizeable Muslim population. Muslim men have regularly misused this provision to divorce their wives instantly by simply uttering 'talaq' thrice. The Supreme Court of India, in the landmark judgement Shayara Bano v. Union of India, finally declared the practice unconstitutional. Salman Khurshid, who assisted in the case as amicus curiae, dives deep into the topic but presents it simply, without much jargon. Explaining the reasons behind the court's decision, he goes on to discuss other aspects of this practice, such as why it is wrong; why this practice has thrived; what the previous judicial pronouncements on it were; what the Quran and Muslim religious leaders say about it; and what the comparative practices in other countries are.

A study of Islamic law and political power in the Ottoman Empire's richest provincial cityWhat did Islamic law mean in the early modern period, a world of great Muslim empires? Often portrayed as the quintessential jurists' law, to a large extent it was developed by scholars outside the purview of the state. However, for the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, justice was the ultimate duty of the monarch, and Islamic law was a tool of legitimation and governance. James E. Baldwin examines how the interplay of these two conceptions of Islamic law religious scholarship and royal justice undergirded legal practice in Cairo, the largest and richest city in the Ottoman provinces. Through detailed studies of the various formal and informal dispute resolution institutions and practices that formed the fabric of law in Ottoman Cairo, his book contributes to key questions concerning the relationship between the shari'a and political power, the plurality of Islamic legal practice, and the nature of centre-periphery relations in the Ottoman Empire.Key featuresOffers a new interpretation of the relationship between Islamic law and political powerPresents law as the key nexus connecting Egypt with the imperial capital Istanbul during the period of Ottoman decentralizationStudies judicial institutions such as the governor's Diwan and the imperial council that have received little attention in previous scholarshipIntegrates the study of legal records with an analysis of how legal practice was represented in contemporary chroniclesProvides transcriptions and translations of a range of Ottoman legal documents

China and Islam examines the intersection of two critical issues of the contemporary world: Islamic revival and an assertive China, questioning the assumption that Islamic law is incompatible with state law. It finds that both Hui and the Party-State invoke, interpret, and make arguments based on Islamic law, a minjian (unofficial) law in China, to pursue their respective visions of 'the good'. Based on fieldwork in Linxia, 'China's Little Mecca', this study follows Hui clerics, youthful translators on the 'New Silk Road', female educators who reform traditional madrasas, and Party cadres as they reconcile Islamic and socialist laws in the course of the everyday. The first study of Islamic law in China and one of the first ethnographic accounts of law in postsocialist China, China and Islam unsettles unidimensional perceptions of extremist Islam and authoritarian China through Hui minjian practices of law.

In this thought-provoking book, Mona Siddiqui reflects upon key themes in Islamic law and theology. These themes, which range through discussions about friendship, divorce, drunkenness, love, slavery and ritual slaughter, offer fascinating insights into Islamic ethics and the way in which arguments developed in medieval juristic discourse. Pre-modern religious works contained a richness of thought, hesitation and speculation on a wide range of topics, which were socially relevant but also presented intellectual challenges to the scholars for whom God's revelation could be understood in diverse ways. These subjects remain relevant today, for practising Muslims and scholars of Islamic law and religious studies. Mona Siddiqui is an astute and articulate interpreter who relays complex ideas about the Islamic tradition with great clarity. Her book charts her own journey through the classical texts and reflects upon how the principles expounded there have guided her own thinking, teaching and research.

A case study in the textual architecture of the venerable legal and ethical tradition at the center of the Islamic experience, Shari'a Scripts is a work of historical anthropology focused on Yemen in the early twentieth century. There-while colonial regimes, late Ottoman reformers, and early nationalists wrought decisive changes to the legal status of the shari'a, significantly narrowing its sphere of relevance-the Zaydi school of jurisprudence, rooted in highland Yemen for a millennium, still held sway. Brinkley Messick uses the richly varied writings of the Yemeni past to offer a uniquely comprehensive view of the shari'a as a localized and lived phenomenon. Shari'a Scripts reads a wide spectrum of sources in search of a new historical-anthropological perspective on Islamic textual relations. Messick analyzes the shari'a as a local system of texts, distinguishing between theoretical or doctrinal juridical texts (or the "library") and those produced by the shari'a courts and notarial writers (termed the "archive"). Attending to textual form, he closely examines representative books of madrasa instruction; formal opinion-giving by muftis and imams; the structure of court judgments; and the drafting of contracts. Messick's intensive readings of texts are supplemented by retrospective ethnography and oral history based on extensive field research. Further, the book ventures a major methodological contribution by confronting anthropology's longstanding reliance upon the observational and the colloquial. Presenting a new understanding of Islamic legal history, Shari'a Scripts is a groundbreaking examination of the interpretative range and historical insights offered by the anthropologist as reader.

In Quest of Justice provides the first full account of the establishment and workings of a new kind of state in Egypt in the modern period. Drawing on groundbreaking research in the Egyptian archives, this highly original book shows how the state affected those subject to it and their response. Illustrating how shari'a was actually implemented, how criminal justice functioned, and how scientific-medical knowledges and practices were introduced, Khaled Fahmy offers exciting new interpretations that are neither colonial nor nationalist. Moreover he shows how lower-class Egyptians did not see modern practices that fused medical and legal purposes in new ways as contrary to Islam. This is a major contribution to our understanding of Islam and modernity.

What did it mean to be a wife, woman, or slave in a society in which a land-owning woman was forbidden to lay with her male slave but the same slave might be allowed to take concubines? Jurists of the nascent Maliki, Hanafi, and Shafi i legal schools frequently compared marriage to purchase and divorce to manumission. Juggling scripture, precedent, and custom on one hand, and the requirements of logical consistency on the other, legal scholars engaged in vigorous debate. The emerging consensus demonstrated a self-perpetuating analogy between a husband s status as master and a wife s as slave, even as jurists insisted on the dignity of free women and, increasingly, the masculine rights of enslaved husbands.

"Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam" presents the first systematic analysis of how these jurists conceptualized marriage its rights and obligations using the same rhetoric of ownership used to describe slavery. Kecia Ali explores parallels between marriage and concubinage that legitimized sex and legitimated offspring using eighth- through tenth-century legal texts. As the jurists discussed claims spouses could make on each other including dower, sex, obedience, and companionship they returned repeatedly to issues of legal status: wife and concubine, slave and free, male and female.

Complementing the growing body of scholarship on Islamic marital and family law, Ali boldly contributes to the ongoing debates over feminism, sexuality, and reform in Islam.

The diversity of interpretation within Islamic legal traditions can be challenging for those working within this field of study. Using a distinctly contextual approach, this book addresses such challenges by combining theoretical perspectives on Islamic law with insight into how local understandings impact on the application of law in Muslim daily life. Engaging with topics as diverse as Islamic constitutionalism, Islamic finance, human rights and internet fatawa, Shaheen Sardar Ali provides an invaluable resource for scholars, students and practitioners alike by exploring exactly what constitutes Islamic law in the contemporary world. Useful examples, case studies, a glossary of terms and the author's personal reflections accompany traditional academic critique, and together offer the reader a unique and discerning discussion of Islamic law in practice.

This book provides a detailed analysis of Islamic juristic writings on the topic of rape and argues that classical Islamic jurisprudence contained nuanced, substantially divergent doctrines of sexual violation as a punishable crime. The work centers on legal discourses of the first six centuries of Islam, the period during which these discourses reached their classical forms, and chronicles the juristic conflict over whether or not to provide monetary compensation to victims. Along with tracing the emergence and development of this conflict over time, Hina Azam explains evidentiary ramifications of each of the two competing positions, which are examined through debates between the H anafi and Ma liki schools of law. This study examines several critical themes in Islamic law, such as the relationship between sexuality and property, the tension between divine rights and personal rights in sex crimes, and justifications of victim's rights afforded by the two competing doctrines.

This pioneering study examines the process of reasoning in Islamic law. Some of the key questions addressed here include whether sacred law operates differently from secular law, why laws change or stay the same and how different cultural and historical settings impact the development of legal rulings. In order to explore these questions, the author examines the decisions of thirty jurists from the largest legal tradition in Islam: the Hanafi school of law. He traces their rulings on the question of women and communal prayer across a very broad period of time - from the eighth to the eighteenth century - to demonstrate how jurists interpreted the law and reconciled their decisions with the scripture and the sayings of the Prophet. The result is a fascinating overview of how Islamic law has evolved and the thinking behind individual rulings.