Haider Ala Hamoudi (University of Pittsburgh – School of Law) has posted The Surprising Irrelevance of Islamic Bankruptcy.  This paper was first presented on September 16, 2011, at the “Religion and Bankruptcy: Perspectives Thereon and Treatment Therein” Symposium, held at St. John’s School of Law, and co-hosted by the Center for Law and Religion.  The abstract follows. – ARH

By any standard of logic, the influence of the shari’a should be far more relevant in the area of bankruptcy than it is. Understanding the sources of the broad marginalization of shari’a as it relates to modern bankruptcy law in the Muslim world tells us much about the sharply limited legal scope of Islamic revivalism as concerns economic and commercial matters and perhaps even a little bit about Islamism’s limited legal ambitions more generally.