Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Collection of Primary Sources on Islamic Law

From Cambridge University Press, here is a new source book on Islamic Law, Islamic Law in Context: A Primary Source Reader. The book covers Islamic legal reasoning generally and several topics specifically, such as diet, family life, contracts, and criminal law. The editors are scholars Omar Anchassi (Universität Bern) and Robert Gleave (University of Exeter). The publisher’s description follows:

This volume surveys the diversity of Islamic legal thought and practice, a 1500 – year tradition that has been cultivated throughout the Islamic world. It features translations of Islamic legal texts from across the spectrum of literary genres (including legal theory, judicial handbooks, pamphlets) that represent the range of temporal, geographic and linguistic contexts in which Islamic law has been, and continues to be, developed. Each text has been chosen and translated by a specialist. It is accompanied by an accessible introduction that places the author and text in historical and legal contexts and explains the state of the relevant field of study. An introduction to each section offers an overview of the genre and provides a useful bibliography. The volume will enable all researchers of Islamic law – established academics, undergraduate students, and general readers – to understand the tremendous and sometimes bewildering diversity of Islamic law, as well the continuities and common features that bind it together.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

The Rule of Law in Iran

Iran is one of the world’s few true theocracies. But that doesn’t mean the country lacks the rule of law. Iran doesn’t have the rule of law in a liberal, Western sense. But courts and judges exist, as do bodies of law that govern commerce, family disputes, and other matters. A new collection of essays from Cambridge, The Rule of Law in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Power, Institutions, and the Limits of Reform explores how the rule of law operates in Iran. The editors are Hadi Enayat of Aga Khan University and Mirjam Kunkler of the Institute for Advanced Legal Study. Here’s the description from the Cambridge website:

After Iran’s 1979 Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini denounced the secular legal system of the Pahlavis and pledged his commitment to distinctly Islamic conceptions of law and justice: the application of both the shariʿa and the rule of law (hākemiyat-e qānun) became major ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic. This precipitated the Islamization of the legal system, the judiciary and the courts, a process which still continues today and is the subject of intense ideological and political contestation. The Rule of Law in Iran is the first comprehensive analysis of judicial and legal institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in their social, political and historical contexts. Scholars and practitioners of law, many with experience of working in Iran, shed light on how the rule of law has fared across a variety of areas, from criminal law to labour law, family law, minority rights, policing, the legal profession, the visual and performing arts, trade law, and medicine.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Treatise on Islamic Contract Law

This month, Oxford University Press publishes what purports to be the first comprehensive treatise in the English language on Islamic contract law, titled, appropriately enough, Islamic Contract Law. The treatise is directed at non-experts and looks very helpful. The authors are Ilias Bantekas (Hamad bin Khalifa University),Jonathan G. Ercanbrack (SOAS University of London), Umar A. Oseni (International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation), and Ikram Ullah (International Islamic University Islamabad). Here is the description from the Oxford website:

The first comprehensive treatment of Islamic contract law in the English language, Islamic Contract Law serves as both a reference work and an authoritative statement of the law and the Fiqh underlying it.

The book’s structure draws from the tradition of western contract law books to enable non-expert readers to easily navigate its structure, sources, and application. It covers the complete spectrum of Islamic contract regulation, and includes chapters on the formation of contracts, the sources of Islamic contract law, the role of intention, legal capacity, the importance of the subject matter, as well as the prohibited elements of contracts. Further chapters discuss validity and defects, contractual terms, bilateral agreements, equity-based partnership contracts, ancillary and unilateral contracts, termination and damages, and the role of third parties. Finally, a chapter is devoted to the application of Islamic law in contemporary Muslim-majority legal systems.

This is a key work for understanding the contract underpinnings of Islamic finance instruments and is a must-read for scholars, legal professionals, and students with an interest in contracts governed by Islamic Law.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

The Paradox of Islamic Finance

Even people who know little about Islamic law know it forbids the lending of money at interest. A new book from Princeton, The Paradox of Islamic Finance: How Shariah Scholars Reconcile Religion and Capitalism, shows, perhaps surprisingly, that the ban on interest has not created obstacles for contemporary finance, as scholars have developed alternative ways for observant Muslims to participate in the global economy. How religious law adapts to modernity is always a fascinating topic. The author is sociologist Ryan Calder (Johns Hopkins). Here’s the description from the publisher’s website:

In just fifty years, Islamic finance has grown from a tiny experiment operated from a Volkswagen van to a thriving global industry worth more than the entire financial sector of India, South America, or Eastern Europe. You can now shop with an Islamic credit card, invest in Islamic bonds, and buy Islamic derivatives. But how has this spectacular growth been possible, given Islam’s strictures against interest? In The Paradox of Islamic Finance, Ryan Calder examines the Islamic finance boom, arguing that shariah scholars—experts in Islamic law who certify financial products as truly Islamic—have made the industry a profitable, if controversial, hybrid of religion and markets.

Critics say Islamic finance merely reproduces conventional interest-based finance, with the shariah scholars’ blessing. From an economic perspective, they are right: the most popular Islamic products act like conventional interest-bearing ones, earning healthy profits for Islamic banks and global financial heavyweights like Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Yet as Calder shows by delving into the shariah scholars’ day-to-day work, what seem like high-tech work-arounds to outsiders carry deep and nuanced meaning to the scholars—and to the hundreds of millions of Muslims who respect their expertise. He argues that Shariah scholars’ conception of Islamic finance is perfectly suited to the age of financialization and the global efflorescence of shariah-minded Islam.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

How Islam Rules in Iran

People in the West often assume that government in Islam is a theocracy, but that isn’t quite true. If we define theocracy in traditional terms, as rule by clerics, classical Islam wouldn’t qualify–and very few contemporary Muslim-majority states would meet the definition, either. But the Islamic Republic of Iran is a theocracy–the Supreme Leader is a Shia cleric. A new book from Cambridge University Press, How Islam Rules in Iran: Theology and Theocracy, discusses the place of Islam in present-day Iran. The author is government scholar Mehran Kamrava (Georgetown University in Qatar). Here’s the description from the Cambridge website:

This study provides a comprehensive examination of the evolution of Islam as a ruling framework in postrevolutionary Iran up to the present day. Beginning with the position and structure of Iran’s clerical establishment under the Islamic Republic, Kamrava delves into the jurisprudential debates that have shaped the country’s political institutions and state policies. Kamrava draws on extensive fieldwork to examine various religious narratives that inform the basis of contemporary Iranian politics, also revealing the political salience of common practices and beliefs, such as religious guardianship and guidance, Islam as a source of social protection, the relationship between Islam and democracy, the sources of divine and popular legitimacy, and the theoretical justifications for religious authoritarianism. Providing access to many Persian-language sources for the first time, Kamrava shows how religious intellectual production in Iran has impacted the ongoing transformation of Iranian Shi’ism and ultimately underwritten the fate of the Islamic Republic.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Study of Fatwas in Islamic Law

Even people who know little about Islamic law have heard of the fatwa: an opinion, issued by a qualified scholar, or mufti, on a question of Islamic law. In classical thought, a fatwa is not binding in itself; its authority is persuasive and dependent largely on the learning and reputation of the mufti who issues it. The relationship in Islamic law between fatwas and court judgments, which are binding, is a fascinating one and worthy of sustained study.

A new book from Cambridge, Fatwa and the Making and Renewal of Islamic Law
From the Classical Period to the Present, explores the history of the practice. The author is Omer Awass (American Islamic College). Here’s the publisher’s description:

In this book, Omer Awass examines the formation, history, and transformation of the Islamic legal discourse and institutions through the lens of a particular legal practice: the issuance of fatwas (legal opinions). Tracing the growth of Islamic law over a vast geographical expanse -from Andalusia to India – and a long temporal span – from the 7th to the 21st century, he conceptualizes fatwas as the ‘atomic units’ of Islamic law. Awass argues that they have been a crucial element in the establishment of an Islamic legal tradition. He also provides numerous case studies that touch on economic, social, political, and religious topics. Written in an accessible style, this volume is the first to offer a comprehensive investigation of fatwas within such a broad spatio-temporal scope. It demonstrates how instrumental fatwas have been to the formation of Islamic legal traditions and institutions, as well as their unique forms of reasoning.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

On Temporary Marriage in Islam

In at least some interpretations of Islamic law, there exists the concept of “mut’a” or “pleasure” marriage, a temporary arrangement the duration of which the parties specify in advance. As I understand it, mut’a marriage is limited nowadays to certain schools of Shi’a Islam; Sunni scholars by and large reject it. A new book from Rowman and Littlefield, Marital and Sexual Ethics in Islamic Law: Rethinking Temporary Marriage, explores the present-day understanding of the concept from a variety of Islamic perspectives, including feminist perspectives. The author is Roshan Iqbal (Agnes Scott College). Here’s the publisher’s description:

Roshan Iqbal traces the intellectual legacy of the exegesis of Qur’an 4:24, which is used as the proof text for the permissibility of mut’a (temporary marriage) and asks if the use of verse 4.24 for the permissibility of mut’a marriage is justified within the rules and regulations of Qur’anic hermeneutics. Iqbal examines seventeen Qur’an commentaries, the chronological span of which extends from the first extant commentary to the present day in three major Islamicate languages. Iqbal concludes that doctrinal self-identity, rather than strictly philological analyses, shaped the interpretation of this verse. As Western academia’s first comprehensive work concerning the intellectual history of mut’a marriage and sexual ethics, this work illustrates the power of sectarian influences on how scholars have interpreted verse 4:24. This book is the only work in English that includes a plurality of voices from minor schools (Ibadi, Ashari, Zaidi, and Ismaili) largely neglected by Western scholars, alongside major schools, and draws from all available sub-genres of exegesis. Further, by revealing ambiguities in the interpretation of mut’a, this work challenges accepted sexual ethics in Islamic thought—as presented by most classical and many modern Muslim scholars—and thus opens up space to theorize Islamic sexual ethics anew and contribute to this crucial conversation from the perspective of Muslim feminism.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Christian and Muslim Approaches to Law

One of the very earliest recorded encounters between a Christian and a Muslim, a public debate between a Syriac patriarch and an Arab emir shortly after the Arab conquest of Syria, concerns the role of law in religion. Without a body of law, the emir insisted, Christianity could not call itself a religion; Christians should convert to Islam, a real religion that had the Sharia. The patriarch responded that Christians indeed had law, though not as Muslims understood it; Christians had no need to convert. I thought of this debate when I saw a notice for a forthcoming book from Cambridge, Law and the Rule of God: A Christian Engagement with Sharia, by Joshua Rallston (Edinburgh). Law–or, rather, the proper conception of law–is a major point of contention between these two world religions, and a comparative study like this one seems very promising. The publisher’s description follows:

Sharī’a is one of the most hotly contested and misunderstood concepts and practices in the world today. Debates about Islamic law and its relationship to secularism and Christianity have dominated political and theological discourse for centuries. Unfortunately, Western Christian theologians have failed to engage sufficiently with the challenges and questions raised by Islamic political theology, preferring instead to essentialize or dismiss it. In Law and the Rule of God, Joshua Ralston presents an innovative approach to Christian-Muslim dialogue. Eschewing both polemics and apologetics, he proposes a comparative framework for Christian engagement with Islamic debates on sharī’a. Ralston draws on a diverse range of thinkers from both traditions including Karl Barth, Ibn Taymiyya, Thomas Aquinas, and Mohammad al-Jabri. He offers an account of public law as a provisional and indirect witness to the divine rule of justice. He also demonstrates how this theology of public law deeply resonates with the Christian tradition and is also open to learning from and dialoguing with Islamic and secular conceptions of law, sovereignty, and justice.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Book on Salafism

Salafism is a movement within Islam that seeks to return to what it understands as the earliest, and therefore purest, expressions of Islamic law and practice, from the time of the first few generations of Muslim believers. In a sense, it can be seen as a kind of originalism, opposed to the more conventional Islamic law traditionalism that views the earliest expressions as mediated through the writings of succeeding legal scholars.

A new book from Stanford University Press, On Salafism: Concepts and Contexts, by scholar Azmi Bishara, argues that Salafism is best understood as a contemporary phenomenon based, not in early Islam, but in the current social and political context. Here is the publisher’s description:

On Salafism offers a compelling new understanding of this phenomenon, both its development and contemporary manifestations. Salafism became associated with fundamentalism when the 9/11 Commission used it to explain the terror attacks and has since been connected with the violence of the so-called Islamic State. With this book, Azmi Bishara critically deconstructs claims of continuity between early Islam and modern militancy and makes a counterargument: Salafism is a wholly modern construct informed by specific sociopolitical contexts.

Bishara offers a sophisticated account of various movements—such as Wahabbism and Hanbalism—frequently collapsed into simplistic understandings of Salafism. He distinguishes reformist from regressive Salafism, and examines patterns of modernization in the development of contemporary Islamic political movements and associations. In deconstructing the assumptions of linear continuity between traditional and contemporary movements, Bishara details various divergences in both doctrine and context of modern Salafisms, plural. On Salafism is a crucial read for those interested in Islamism, jihadism, and Middle East politics and history.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Book on Human Rights and Islamic States

Several years ago, I wrote an essay on the concept of human dignity in different legal systems, including the Islamic. Most legal systems honor human dignity, but the concept has different meanings, depending on history, culture, tradition, and deep political and religious commitments. I believe the same thing is true for the concept of human rights. The universal acknowledgement of human rights obscures real differences across the globe.

A new book from Bloomsbury, Human Rights Commitments of Islamic States, by Paul McDonough (Cardiff), examines questions at the intersection of international human rights and Islamic law. Looks very interesting. Here is the publisher’s description:

This book examines the legal nature of Islamic states and the human rights they have committed to uphold. It begins with an overview of the political history of Islam, and of Islamic law, focusing primarily on key developments of the first two centuries of Islam. Building on this foundation, the book presents the first study into Islamic constitutions to map the relationship between Sharia and the state in terms of institutions of governance. It then assesses the place of Islamic law in the national legal order of all of today’s Islamic states, before proceeding to a comprehensive analysis of those states’ adherences to the UN human rights treaties, and finally, a set of international human rights declarations made jointly by Islamic states.

Throughout, the focus remains on human rights. Having examined Islamic law first in isolation, then as it reflects into state structures and national constitutional orders, the book provides the background necessary to understand how an Islamic state’s treaty commitments reflect into national law. In this endeavour, the book unites three strands of analysis: the compatibility of Sharia with the human rights enunciated in UN treaties; the patterns of adherence of Islamic states with those treaties; and the compatibility of international Islamic human rights declarations with UN standards. By exploring the international human rights commitments of all Islamic states within a single analytical framework, this book will appeal to international human rights and constitutional scholars with an interest in Islamic law and states. It will also be useful to readers with a general interest in the relationships between Sharia, Islamic states, and internationally recognised human rights.