ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS Following the Taliban's rise to power, many law students and lawyers from Afghanistan have reported that "[i]t is not the application of Islamic criminal law that frightens [them], it is that it is applied without due process." Haroun Rahimi, a self-exiled Afghan who was a professor of law at Kabul … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup
The United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Taliban's subsequent takeover of the country has brought, once again, Islam and Islamic law to the fore in recent news coverage, reports, and analyses. This renewed attention to Islamic law is in part due to the fact that the Taliban identifies itself as a Muslim military organization … Continue reading Resource Roundup: Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Islamic Law
Egypt's fatwā authority, Dar Al-Ifta, issued a new edition of Insight magazine that it publishes in English, which discusses women's rights in Islam. In "What is and isnt' Shariah?," Ekrem Bugra Ekinci (Daily Sabah) states that sharī'a is ultimately an effort by scholars to identify and interpret divine rules, which allows for greater flexibility. UN … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup
By Irene K. F. Kirchner (Georgetown University) This essay is part of the Islamic Law Blog’s Roundtable on Islamic Legal History & Historiography, edited by Intisar Rabb (Editor-in-Chief) and Mariam Sheibani (Lead Blog Editor), and introduced with a list of further readings in the short post by Intisar Rabb: “Methods and Meaning in Islamic Law: … Continue reading Measuring interpretive authority: a methodological reflection
This week’s issue of SSRN’s Islamic Law & Law of the Muslim World eJournal includes: "Muslims and Sacred Texts and Laws" by Ihsan Yilmaz Like secular law, Islamic law also deals with matters of social, political, and economic interaction. This includes marriage, divorce, inheritance, criminal offenses, contracts, commercial transactions, constitutional law, and international law; basically, paralleling the secular law … Continue reading Islamic Law & Law of the Muslim World eJournal: August 7
By Marzieh Tofighi Darian Islamic Republic of Iran has designed an elaborate and stringent system of Islamic constitutionalism under its 1979 Constitution. Not only does the Constitution aim at making sharīʿa the main source of legislation,[1] it also establishes a detailed system to ensure the enforcement of its sharīʿa clause. The Constitution has vested the … Continue reading The Duality of State Law and Sharīʿa in the Islamic Republic of Iran
By Cem Tecimer Source: Noah Feldman, Islamic Constitutionalism in Context: A Typology and a Warning 7 U. St. Thomas L. J. 436-451 (2010) Summary: Feldman begins his article by explaining what has prompted him to write the article in the first place: a symposium, in which he participated, entitled “Islamic Law and Constitutional Liberty.” Closely … Continue reading Scholarship in “Plain English”: Noah Feldman on Islamic Constitutionalism in Context: A Typology and a Warning
The constitutions of many Muslim-majority countries contain clauses that declare sharīʿa a source of legislation. These “sharīʿaclauses” may name sharīʿa as “a chief source,” “the chief source,” or “the only source,” among others, of national laws. Though the phrasing of these clauses seems quite similar, some scholars and government officials have ascribed importance to the differences between them. By … Continue reading Review :: Clark Lombardi on Sharīʿa as a Source of Legislation
By Alicia Daniel Citation: Sherman A. Jackson, The Primacy of Domestic Politics: Ibn Bint Al-Aʿazz and the Establishment of Four Chief Judgeships in Mamlūk Egypt, Journal of the American Oriental Society 115, no. 1 (1995): 52-65. *Note: All page numbers used as citations refer to the above article. Sherman A. Jackson, King Faisal Chair in … Continue reading Islamic Law Lexicon :: Islamic Law (sharīʿa)
Recently in Texas, a state legislator, Representative Kyle Biedermann, sent out what he called a poll to mosques across the state. A copy of the loyalty test-style letter and reform-of-Islam manifesto, called a "poll", is reproduced here. The "poll" was in fact a 7-page series of documents that drew on false notions of select questions of … Continue reading TRENDING: When is a Texas “poll” about sharīʿa not really a poll and not really about sharīʿa?
