Shari'a in the West

Rex Ahdar is Professor of Law at the University of OtagoNicholas Aroney is Professor of Law at the University of Queensland

Despite its complexity, the issue of the relationship between Shariah and Western legal systems is of prime interest to policymakers, jurists and Muslims living in the West...Shariah in the West opens the path for lively discussions on the place of Islam in the Western, multicultural democracies. It also raises the point made by Tariq Ramadan that Shariah is often interpreted in ways, inconsistent with its core principles and it needs serious scholarly reform and consensual modernisation

• 1. The Topography of Shari'a in the Western Political Landscape ; I ; 2. Multicultural Citizenship and the Shari'a Controversy in Britain ; 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury: The Man and the Theology Behind the Shari'a Lecture ; 4. Religious Courts' Recognition Claims: Two Qualitatively Distinct Narratives ; 5. Islamic Law, Fundamental Freedoms, and Social Cohesion: Retrospect and Prospect ; 6. Shari'a and Pluralism ; II ; 7. Questions about the Reasonable Accommodation of Minorities ; 8. Entangled: State, Religion, and the Family ; 9. Shari'a and the True Basis of Group Rights: Islam, the West, and Liberalism ; 10. Religious Courts, Personal Federalism, and Legal Transplants ; 11. Natural Law, Democracy, and Shari'a ; III ; 12. Negotiating the Unfamiliar: Reflections from the Netherlands on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lecture ; 13. Reflections on the Establishment of Shari'a Courts in Australia ; 14. In the Shadow of Our Legal System: Shari'a in Australia ; IV ; 15. To Shari'aticize or not to Shari'aticize: Islamic and Secular Law in Liberal Democratic Society ; 16. The Future of Muslim Family Law in Western Democracies ; APPENDIX I ; The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Rt Rev Dr Rowan Williams, Civil and Religious Law in England: a Religious Perspective ; APPENDIX II ; Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Equality Before the Law