Studies in Islamic Law and Society - Böcker

Dr. ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Sanhūrī (1895-1971) is one of the most prominent jurists to emerge to date in the Arab world. His alarm at the growing social gap in his country, Egypt, during the first half of the twentieth century, fueled his vision of establishing moral social order by means of a new civil code.Although Sanhūrī’s chosen tool was the legal text, this book argues that his vision was essentially a social one: to introduce the principles of compassion, solidarity and fairness, alongside progress and pragmatism, into polarized Egyptian society, whereby property laws acquired a social function, the laws of partnership were perceived as having an educational value, and contract law was activated as a balance favoring the weaker members of society.Accordingly, this book examines the drafting of the Egyptian Civil Code, exposing the hitherto unknown sociological strata of this act of legislation.

In this collected volume, Aharon Layish demonstrates that legal documents are an essential source for legal and social history. Since the late nineteenth century, Islamic law has undergone tremendous transformations, some of which have strongly affected the basic features of its nature.The changes include the transformation of Islamic law from a jurists’ law to a statutory law; the abolishment of waqf; the Islamization of tribal customary law; the creation of Sudanese legal methodologies strongly inspired by Ṣūfī and Salafī traditions or Western law, and the emergence of an Israeli version of Islamic law.

This is the first collection of studies entirely devoted to the terminological pair dār al-islām / dar al-ḥarb, “the abode of Islam” and “the abode of war”, apparently widely known as representative of “the Islamic vision” of the world, but in fact almost unexplored. A team of specialists in different fields of Islamic studies investigates the issue in its historical and conceptual origins as well as in its reception within the different genres of Muslim written production. In contrast to the fixed and permanent categories they are currently identified with, the multifaceted character of these two notions and their shifting meanings is set out through the analysis of a wide range of contexts and sources, from the middle ages up to modern times.Contributors are Francisco Apellániz, Michel Balivet, Giovanna Calasso, Alessandro Cancian, Éric Chaumont, Roberta Denaro, Maribel Fierro, Chiara Formichi, Yohanan Friedmann, Giuliano Lancioni, Yaacov Lev, Nicola Melis, Luis Molina, Antonino Pellitteri, Camille Rhoné-Quer, Francesca Romana Romani, Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, Roberto Tottoli, Raoul Villano, Eleonora Di Vincenzo and Francesco Zappa.

This volume is a tribute to the work of legal and social historian and Arabist Rudolph Peters (University of Amsterdam). Presenting case studies from different periods and areas of the Muslim world, the book examines the use of legal documents for the study of the history of Muslim societies. From examinations of the conceptual status of legal documents to comparative studies of the development of legal formulae and the socio-economic or political historical information documents contain, the aim is to approach legal documents as specialised texts belonging to a specific social domain, while simultaneously connecting them to other historical sources. It discusses the daily functioning of legal institutions, the reflections of regime changes on legal documentation, daily life, and the materiality of legal documents.Contributors are Maaike van Berkel, Maurits H. van den Boogert, Léon Buskens, Khaled Fahmy, Aharon Layish, Sergio Carro Martín, Brinkley Messick, Toru Miura, Christian Müller, Petra M. Sijpesteijn, Mathieu Tillier, and Amalia Zomeño.

Islamic foundations (waqf, pl. awqāf) have been an integral part of Yemeni society both for managing private wealth and as a legal frame for charity and public infrastructure. This book focuses on four socially grounded fields of legal knowledge: fiqh, codification, individual waqf cases, and everyday waqf-related knowledge. It combines textual analysis with ethnography and seeks to understand how Islamic law is approached, used, produced, and validated in selected topics of waqf law where there are tensions between ideals and pragmatic rules. The study analyses central Zaydī fiqh works such as the Sharḥ al-azhār cluster, imamic decrees, fatwās, and waqf documents, mostly from Zaydī, northern Yemen.For the Arabic edition, please see here.

In Visions of Sharīʿa Bhojani, De Rooij and Bohlander present the first broad examination of ways in which legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) within Twelver Shīʿī thought continues to be a forum for vibrant debates regarding the assumptions, epistemology and hermeneutics of Sharīʿa in contemporary Shīʿī thought. Bringing together authoritative voices and emerging scholars, from both ‘traditional’ seminaries and ‘Western’ academies, the distinct critical insider and emic accounts provided develop a novel avenue in Islamic legal studies. Contextualised through reference to the history of Shīʿī legal theory as well as contemporary juristic practice and socio-political considerations, the volume demonstrates how one of the most intellectually vibrant and developed discourses of Islamic thought continues to be a key forum for exploring visions of Sharīʿa.

Approaches to legal pluralism vary widely across the spectrum of different disciplines. They comprise normative and descriptive perspectives, focus both on legal pluralist realities as well as public debates, and address legal pluralism in a range of different societies with varying political, institutional and historical conditions. Emphasising an empirical research to contemporary legal pluralist settings in Muslim contexts, the present collected volume contributes to a deepened understanding of legal pluralist issues and realities through comparative examination. This approach reveals some common features, such as the relevance of Islamic law in power struggles and in the construction of (state or national) identities, strategies of coping with coexisting sets of legal norms by the respective agents, or public debates about the risks induced by the recognition of religious institutions in migrant societies. At the same time, the studies contained in this volume reveal that legal pluralist settings often reflect very specific historical and social constellations, which demands caution towards any generalisation. The volume is based on papers presented at a conference in Münster (Germany) in 2016 and comprises contributions by Judith Koschorke, Karen Meerschaut, Yvonne Prief, Ulrike Qubaja, Werner de Saeger, Ido Shahar, Katrin Seidel, Konstantinos Tsitselikis, Vishal Vora and Ihsan Yilmaz.

This book invites the reader to explore how Islamic theology and law have shaped, challenged, and inspired each other across centuries. What does it mean, for example, when a legal rule embodies theological debates on divine justice? We unpack questions like this by diving into the rich history and modern-day relevance of theology and legal theory in Islam, using rare manuscripts and new historical findings. The book’s contributors offer fresh perspectives on how Islamic scholars tackled pressing social issues and adapted their thought to evolving contexts. This work stands out for its engaging examination of Islam's intellectual legacy and its potential pathways for today.Contributors are Mohammed Abdelrahem, Ahmad Atif Ahmad, Maha El-Kaisy, Mohammed Fadel, Ramon Harvey, Serdar Kurnaz, Abdul Rahman Mustafa, Najah Nadi and David Vishanoff.

This book provides an in-depth exploration of the Saudi judiciary in the 21st century. Drawing on interviews with leading members of the Saudi judiciary, seldom-seen legal literature and court judgments, the author addresses two main questions: First, what is the Saudi jurists’ understanding of an Islamic judiciary? And second, how is this understanding reflected in the Saudi legal system, its laws, its institutions, and court practices?