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This article focuses on adjudication of Muslim family law in countries that range from the Middle East and North Africa to South-East Asia. It begins by shortly summarizing the development of shari'a in pre-modern times, up until the 19th century. We discuss the basic features of marriage among classical jurists and argue that the close connection known today between the family and Islamic law can be traced to the emergence of modern nation states and centralizing state structures. We then provide a description of important personal status reforms during the 20th and 21st centuries and consider the growing body of scholarship that engages with adjudication of Muslim family law in action and in context. Finally, we consider the contribution that the articles contained in the special double issue make to the field of research, including the questions of gender and judicial authority, religion-based judicial activism, and the courts' involvement in larger socio-political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines why ordinary people sympathize with a terrorist network in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Holding literalist religious outlook resonating with al-Qaeda’s marginal interpretation of Islam constant, it is maintained that anti-Americanism and its varieties matter a great deal in explaining attitudes toward al-Qaeda. Using Pew Global Attitudes Surveys conducted in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia, the authors run conditional mixed process estimations combining seemingly unrelated regressions with selection models to account for the missing values and endogeneity problems. The analysis reveals significant variation both cross-nationally and in the effects of varieties of anti-Americanism on favorability of al-Qaeda. While the dislike of certain aspects of American culture generates sympathy toward al-Qaeda, anti-Americanism as a general attitude does not. More interestingly, dislike of American democracy, technology, and policy has either negative or no effect on favorable views of al-Qaeda. Literalist religious outlook generates positive views of al-Qaeda, but religiosity has a negative impact. These findings imply that we need to draw careful distinctions between politicized Islamic preferences and personal religiosity as well as the different types of anti-American sentiments in understanding Muslim political attitudes about terrorist groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007 and in a drive to modernize its legal system, Saudi Arabia promulgated the new Law of the Judiciary which aims at beginning a process of codifying Shar'ia Law, unifying the Saudi Court System and making the administration of state legislation a function of the reluctant Shar'ia courts. This project, however, entails revisiting traditional Shari's legal principals heretofore held sacrosanct and presumes to redraw the contours of legitimate state power while simultaneously limiting the constraining role of Shar'ia. As such, the new Law of the Judiciary constitutes a major challenge to the Saudi Shar"a establishment and its implementation, or lack thereof, shall reflect on the extent the Saudi constitutional landscape has evolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]