Written by leading experts in their field, this is the first comprehensive single volume analysis of Islam and public policy in the English language and offers further understanding of Islam and its wider social and political implications. It examines how Sharia law affects public policy both theoretically and in practice, across a wide range of public policy areas, including human rights and family law. The process by which public policy is decided through elections, debates, political processes, and political discourse - has an additional dimension in the Islamic world. This is because Shari'a (divine law) has a great deal to say on many mundane matters of everyday life and must be taken into account in matters of public policy. "This pioneering volume goes beyond formalistic analysis of Islamic states and standard discourses of public policy to underscore the actual significance and limitations of the influence of Islamist normative and legalist discourses on key areas of public policy in the Muslim world." Jomo K. S., editor of Islamic Economic Alternatives

This is a new examination of how Sharia (TM)a law affects public policy both theoretically and in practice, across a wide range of public policy areas, including for example human rights and family law.

The process by which public policy is decided - through elections, debates, political processes, and political discourse - has an additional dimension in the Islamic world. This is because Shari'a (divine law) has a great deal to say on many mundane matters of everyday life and must be taken into account in matters of public policy. In addition, matters are complicated further by the fact that there are differing interpretations of the Shari'a and how it should be applied to contemporary social issues.

Written by leading experts in their field, this is the first comprehensive single volume analysis of Islam and public policy in the English language and offers further understanding of Islam and its wider social and political implications.

In the past twenty-five years Iran has experienced a revolution and a turbulent post revolutionary period under an Islamic state that declared itself the government of the oppressed while it struggled to establish a utopian Islamic economy. In this pioneering work Farhad Nomani and Sohrab Behdad provide a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of change and class configuration in Iranian society. Using a theoretical framework, they map the trajectory of class changes over time, specifically noting the movements between pre revolutionary and post revolutionary Iran. A centerpiece of the book is its analysis of the changes in the pattern of employment of women in the post revolutionary period. Despite its conceptual and quantitative approach, the book is written in a clear and lucid style, making it accessible to a wide audience. The authors provide a fresh look into Iranian society by exploring the changes in its essential underlying economic structure, and in doing so, the book lays the foundation for comparative studies of social hierarchy of labor in other Middle Eastern countries.

This major new study examines the central tenets of Islamic economics, both in theory and in practice. The authors pinpoint the uniqueness of the Islamic approach, both in its conception of the world's resources and in its attitude to human endeavour. Their book illuminates the distinctive nature of an economics which is based neither on meeting the demands of the individual consumer, nor on increasing the level of general welfare, but on maximising the pleasure of God. The different schools of Islamic thought are then compared and their interpretations analysed in terms of their approaches to plan and market, centralisation and decentralisation, property rights, profit and social obligation. A detailed historical survey follows of the experience of four very different Muslim countries: Libya, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran. The authors examine how the implementation of Islamic economic solutions has worked out in reality, often in the context of a tense political situation. They look at the practicality of such solutions in the present day, assessing both their economic performance and their success in guiding society towards the Islamic ideal. The book as a whole allows the reader to grasp the multifarious nature of Islamic thought in economic matters, its contradictory and often contentious character, and the uses to which Islam has been put by governments with clearly diverse aims. Students of economics and of the Middle East will find it a useful guide to the new terms in which an old and fierce debate is being conducted.