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Abstract As with other family law regimes, Muslim family law in Egypt plays an important role in shaping gender norms. In this article, I discuss adjudication by family courts during the period 2008-2013. I argue that the most important developments in this regard are: (1) standardisation of the way in which court rulings are written down, which contributed to a normalisation of the male-dominated nuclear family; and (2) the significant inclusion of Islamic sources in court rulings. A central question in this regard is how judges without a background in classical Islamic jurisprudence have applied the modern legal codes derived from shari‘a. I argue that a move towards greater standardisation of practice has taken place through a closer union between law and religious morality, with Quranic verses and the Sunna being used by judges in creative ways. Thus, shari‘a is continuously reinscribed in state law and its meaning construed in ways which differ from classical Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). I also highlight the importance of key contextual factors, such as judicial training, time pressure, and the influence of computer technology, behind these developments.

This paper aims at looking at the phenomenon of intolerance against Jemaat Ahmadiya in Indonesia that has been occuring since several decades ago. The Jemaat Ahmadiya is continuously accused of blaspheming Islam, and, thus, led to its dissolution by the government. Employing political sociology as an approach, this article frames the plight of Jemaat Ahmadiyya through the lens of Jeremy Menchik’s “godly nationalism”. It then argues that (1) violence against Jemaat Ahmadiya are not only perpetrated by certain elements of intolerance society, but also accommodated by the government thanks to the general consensus regarding the common orthodox theism in Indonesia; (2) the phenomenon of intolerance also shows that Indonesian citizens are still perplexed by the concept of nationalism: on the one hand, Indonesia is deemed to be a secular state, on the other hand, it accommodates religions and their teachings into the state’s life.

In this article, the author deals with the epistemological role of the prophets from al-Ghazali’s view-point by an analytic method. This role includes both educational and training ones. In its educational role, it is both direct as well as indirect; it also includes both factual and moral knowledge. In this role, besides proposing truths beyond discursive reason, prophets give the way of achieving the highest intellectual level of knowledge in order that human beings, themselves, by ascending cognitive levels, would achieve that high level of knowledge. In this regard, the profound unity between reason and the Shari’a (prophetic teachings) in al-Ghazali's view, is also considered and clarifies that al-Ghazali ties the beginning of rational and scientific movement of human being with receiving knowledge by revelation (Shari’a). In his thought, only the prophetic level of knowledge, i.e. unveiling knowledge, is the one that guides human being to achieve certain knowledge, which is the perfection of rational knowledge in the lower level.

Democracy and secularism are the values of Western civilization promoted in modern centuries. Muslims differ in terms of absolute acceptance, absolute rejection or conditional acceptance. This article deals with them according to the texts of the Quran and the Sunnah, noting the current conditions of Muslims in the world and concluding that secularism does not correspond to Islam in any way, because it refuses to reference to what God has revealed. However, a Muslim must live in secular countries that allow him freedom of thought and religion, and provide beautiful models of Islamic ethics and call people to the right (hakk) in peaceful ways so that individuals in society adopt Islamic principles and agree to organize life according to the Quran and Sunnah. As for democracy, it is either restricted by reference to the Qur'an and Sunnah or it is divorced not. The first is an administrative form that is quite legitimate. And the second contains things contrary to Islamic principles such as non-reference in the enactment of laws to the Sharia and the assigment of deputies and leaders who do not care about the development of laws with the consent of the Sharia. However, Muslims can benefit from voting, for election, etc., especially if they need to defend their rights. But sometimes this is even necessary because of the circumstances in which they are. If they choose this path and see no real legislator except for Allah there is nothing wrong with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how Shari'a is conceptualized and experienced by 50 Muslim legal professionals and leaders in Sydney and New York. It analyses qualitative data on issues concerning the experience of Muslims with Shari'a, on how this can be improved in both countries and on how compatible Shari'a is with their respective legal systems. While the Muslim community should not be homogenized in either of these two global cities, the analysis discovers strong similarities with regard to dealing with a parallel legal system and implementing a more formal process. The New York sample expresses stronger support for a more community-based approach, while the focus on Shari'a compliant business is stronger among the Australian participants. With regard to gender issues, the large majority of the respondents offer a strong reflective approach to dealing with these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Godišnjak Pravnog Fakulteta u Sarajevu is the property of Godisnjak Pravnog Fakulteta u Sarajevu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The post-colonialist academic discourse blames colonialism for the marginalisation of Sharī'a in the legal systems of Sunnī Muslim-majority countries. However, an analysis of some juristic debates around the Sunnī doctrinal theories of uṣūl al-fiqh and maqāṣid al-sharīʿa exposes few of the theories' internal problems accounting for the marginalisation. In uṣūl al-fiqh , disputes regarding ijmāʿ and qiyās virtually bring their effectiveness as legal doctrines for positive law legislation to a halt. With regard to maqāṣid al-sharīʿa , an Ašʿarī adherence to a literal reading of the text reduces its potential to produce new Sharī'a-compliant laws. Such problems render uṣūl al-fiqh and maqāṣid al-sharīʿa ineffective instruments for regulating accelerated legal changes demanded by fast-paced societal and scientific developments and deem the application of Sharīʿa in Sunnī Muslim-majority countries a task neither possible nor even recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring Islamic sources, Islamic rules are revealed for the sake of maslaha (wellbeing) in human life. However, in particular situations, implementing some rules might not achieve maslaha, and might even militate against it. In this regard, considering ma'alat (consequences of action) was suggested by al-Shatibi as a principle for providing exceptions in Islamic rules, either to ban a permitted action or to tolerate a prohibited action for the sake of maslaha. However, this principle could equate to the concept of the ends justifying the means. Thus, this paper aims to analyse the words of al-Shatibi on his idea of considering ma'alat. The findings reveal that, since considering ma'alatis applied at the stage of the implementation of rules, and this process is carried out under the discipline of maqasid al-Shari`a (objective of Islamic law), this principle is not being used to justify the amendment of Islamic rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a cursory reading in the Ibadhi legacy, drawing on its diversity in place and time. It investigates the notion of sunna in its different meanings and connotations in this legacy, in the linguistic, usuli and fiqhi usage as well as at its intersections with hadith, athar and sira. The article documents the rich and independent legacy of the Ibadhi school. It concludes that, apart from minor particularities in technical terms and conceptualisation, there is virtually no difference as compared to other schools in the usage of the notion of sunna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the marginal extremities -- the limits -- of Shari'a practices in Australia, through the example of a criminal case in which four Sydney-based Muslim men whipped a Muslim convert to punish him for his excessive consumption of drugs and alcohol. The men claimed they acted in line with the doctrines of Shari'a practice to 'purify' or absolve the victim of his sins. While the case was tried before a magistrate in a lower court, it is argued in this article that its social and political significance was wider, reaching into contemporary debates around multiculturalism and immigration from non-western, non-liberal and mainly Muslim nations. Mainstream media and political narratives viewed the whipping as an example of the moral dangers of accommodating Shari'a norms, eliding the differences between peaceable Shari'a and its violent extremities, while situating the case at the limits of multicultural accommodation. This article interrogates the objectionable margins of some cultural practices through this limit case. At the same time it questions the limits or limitations of a multiculturalism that homogeneously views the practices of entire ethnic or religious groups as violent and incommensurable with dominant norms, while using these understandings as a justification for marginalising these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond the esoteric deliberations of Islamic jurists and their exegesis of criminal and private law doctrines, Iranian law lives a life of its own. It is a life of routine practices of judges, court clerks, lawyers and clients, each of whom is striving to turn the law to their own advantage. It is also a life of contested legality, a relentless struggle over the right to determine the law in a juridical field which is infused with strife and hostility. These conflicts are reproduced daily as two competing conceptions of law, and their corresponding perceptions of legality clash in pursuit of justice. The Iranian judiciary’s concept of law, its reconstruction of Islamic jurisprudence and methods of dispensing justice, which on the surface are reminiscent of Max Weber’s “qādi-justice,” collide with the legal profession’s formal rational understanding thereof. However, Iranian judges are not Weberian qādis, and the legal profession is not a homogenous group of attorneys driven by a collective commitment to the rule of law. To understand their conflict, we need to explore the mundane workings of the legal system in the context of the transformation of Iranian society and the unresolved disputes over the direction of its modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the contestation over the meaning and uses of shari’a (Islamic Law) in South Sulawesi Indonesia. Its purpose is to shed light upon the importance and limits of shari’a discursive argumentation in Muslim life, and to examine how shari’a is used in contemporary sociocultural and political processes. The escalation of shari’a formalisation after democratization in Indonesia has widely gained scholarly attention. While the existing literature largely focuses on shari’a politics and the shari’a of the elites, this article focuses on the anthropology of the shari’a politics and the varied usage of shari’a in sociocultural processes across different social assemblages. The research was conducted in Bulukumba, a district divided by the initiative for the formalisation of shari’a at district level. The study reveals that Muslims engage and imagine the shari’a in strikingly different ways, many of which are not at all discursive in a manner consistent with fiqh or scholarly legal commentaries. Discursive argumentation is not the only source of authority in Islamic community. It is a point in a vast network of relationships. The experiences of ordinary Muslims in South Sulawesi illuminate that discursive argumentation can be a less direct and less explicit tool than ritualisation to resist shari’ahisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The article examines the legislative and judicial tasks of Islamic jurists and how they carried it out in constitutional or general legal structure. While the Pakistani experiment was inspired by the Iranian model of jurists' involvement in legislatures, Egypt took a different path by not recognizing any official role for Islamic jurists with ambiguous recognition of Islamic jurisprudence. The legislative role could take the form of incorporating Islamic jurists into the legislature, establishing a committee partially made up of Islamic jurists, or handing over some legislative task to an Islamic jurisprudential institution. Despite the fact that Islamization was intended to respond to the people's requests, it employed autocratic and authoritarian mechanisms. The project attempted to replace the typical class of socially recognized jurists with appointed committees entrusted with Islamic codification. The experiment was challenged for its operation and its Islamicity but never introduced Shari'a courts or Islamic clerical legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islamic State is a terror organization that distinguishes itself from other similar groups by the establishment of a bureaucratic structure that projects the image of a state. This essay investigates documents produced in Iraq under the banner of the caliphate. These documents reveal an administration that enforces itself over a large territory. Their analysis points to a particular view of government presented as Islamic, which this investigation compares with precedents set throughout Islamic history, while traces of the modern conception of a state are found to be salient.

Attempts at the implementation of shari’a in Indonesia have always been marked by a tension between political aspirations of the proponents and the opponents of shari’a and by resistance from the secular state. The tension had led to the profound and ongoing legal political dissonance in the formal application of shari’a rules in the country. A continuum between conflicts in meanings and direct contradictions in terms has resulted in a debate of which and whose shari’a to be implemented. This paper looks at the roots as well as the sources of those dissonances. It observes a number of conditions that make the articulation of religious law dissonant. It argues that more direct dissonance is discernible between the aspiration for the formal implementation of shari’a and constitutional rights of religious freedom. Arguing that despite shari’a has been able to seep into scattered legal aspects within Indonesian state and society and that the state has allowed shari’a to be incorporated in many ways into its legal system, nationally and regionally, it concludes that the state continues to control and restrict this dispersion and that shari’a remains tightly confined in Indonesia

Copyright of Zbornik radova Fakulteta islamskih nauka u Sarajevu is the property of Zbornik radova Fakulteta islamskih nauka u Sarajevu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Satellite TV and the Internet revolutions have reinvigorated religious discourse in public spaces. Across the world, religious TV channels and Internet religious websites have taken up the roles of traditional religious spaces such as churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras and temples. Islamic religious content through fatwa (religious verdict) programmes and other online and satellite TV genre has attracted considerable attention over the last fifteen years. Such programmes have become influential platforms in constructing people's opinions. On Islamic-oriented satellite TV channels, fatwa provision has nowadays become a sophisticated phenomenon exceeding the traditional scope of religious teaching. To understand fatwa and its possible impact, it is necessary to gauge the plethora of platforms available for audiences and users as sources of understanding their religious needs starting with satellite TV programmes to the unlimited online platforms for the diffusion of their religious decree. This research attempts to understand the extent to which fatwa programmes on satellite TV and radio are significant in shaping people's opinion. Through the implementation of an extensive survey questionnaire on a sample of the Qatari society in addition to interviews with experts and religious scholars, findings show that fatwa on satellite programme can be very important in helping viewers better understand their religion. The results also indicated that respondents included in the survey showed apathy when it comes to the implementation of rulings coming from muftis on TV. In short, respondents may watch fatwa or religious programmes on satellite TV or they may listen to them on the Qur'an radio in Qatar but they do not necessarily consider them as totally authentic. Authentic scholarly views on matters of religious seem to be more credible when they originate from a reputable Imam whom they see face to face. Moreover, results show that satellite TV has facilitated the emergence of the pan-Arab mufti or global Faqeeh. It has also facilitated the emergence of independent muftis and freed fatwa from the official religious authorities in various countries. [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]

Copyright of Africa Development is the property of CODESRIA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay is one of the first collaborative efforts to identify the underlying norms embedded in diverse traditions of Islamic law as these apply to contemporary Muslim communities experiencing conflict or transitioning from conflict. This long overdue endeavor draws upon comparative legal analyses, postconflict justice traditions, global governance, and empirical conflict studies to explore why Islamic legal norms are not often used as a resource for restraint and guidance in contemporary conflict settings. In exploring this puzzle, the authors make the case for strengthening commensurate Islamic and international conflict norms for complex conflicts and postconflict tradition. We also situate Islamic postconflict justice norms--which are too often confined to religious and natural law discussions--into contemporary problems of security policy, conflict prevention, and problems of governance. We indicate the many benefits of such a comparative approach for citizens of diverse Muslim and Arabs states and communities, trying to build pathways out of conflict, and for humanitarian and human rights practitioners working in such arenas toward similar goals. An additional, important benefit in excavating such shari'a norms is in providing the intellectual basis to counter politicized, extremist, and instrumentalist uses of Islamic law to justify extreme uses of political violence across the Middle East, Central and South Asian, and African regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pravnik is the property of Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of State & Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores how Shari'a is conceptualised and experienced by 27 Muslim legal professionals and leaders in Sydney. It analyses qualitative data on issues with regards to the experience of Muslims with Shari'a, on how it can be improved in Australia and on how compatible is Shari'a with the Australian legal system. It also discusses Shari'a tribunals and financial opportunity. While we do not find any convincing arguments for the push to the further implementation of Shari'a in Australia, we find that despite political objections Shari'a is a vital part of everyday life for observant Australian Muslims. We are arguing that the popular political debate around Shari'a is in critical need of more exposure to balanced Muslim voices that can be heard above the popular political resistance to any manifestation of Shari'a. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Islām shows clearly how the question of the Caliphate is of central, enduring and great ongoing importance. While Christianity was split into different religious denominations, in particular during the 5th century due to theological questions about the divine and human nature of Christ, the biggest split in Islām was due to questions about the Caliphate. This article offers an introduction to the divergent approaches to government in Islām and a discussion of recent efforts to restore an Islāmic Caliphate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses Mauritanian society’s attitude towards death in general and the dead in particular. Although religion has a degree of influence on death and handling of the dead, the practices that Mauritanians have traditionally adopted with respect to these two issues reflect the multi-ethnic and cultural norms of this population. The article focuses on those traditions and prevalent rituals of Mauritanian society, examined within their ethnic diversity and spatial distribution, while in doing so assessing these practices fromsharīʿa1[Islamic Law]’s perspective. Using an anthropological and historical approach, this article identifies various components of Mauritanian society and discusses how they appeal to religious precepts to overcome some of those popular uses as they pertain to the deceased. This research article reveals that regardless of the injunctions of Islam on the matter, some traditional beliefs are everlasting because they are firmly anchored and widespread in the society, thus making their elimination quasi-impossible in the short term. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates how the Saudi regime uses sponsorship to support its educational system in Indonesia. The article focuses its analysis on LIPIA (Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Islam dan Arab, Institute for the Knowledge of Islam and Arab). LIPIA is an Islamic institution consistent using traditional Islamic scholarship especially those of the Hanbalite schools of thought. This is reflected in the entire curriculum the LIPIA has for its students. The writer argues that the relationship between the sponsor, i.e. the Saudi state, and the sponsorship beneficiaries, i.e. students, is patron-client. Nevertheless, it involves a wide range of actors thereby allowing the diversity of knowledge reproduction. Over the last three decades, it has made a big investment on the field of education by building Islamic schools and institutes, distributing scholarship for Indonesian students, and channeling aid for Muslim organizations. It is becoming obvious that Saudi uses education as a political strategy to maintain its influences over Indonesia.

The discourses on the application of shari’a law through state enforcement have become public concerns in Indonesia and constituted a controversial issue. The idea of the application has been brought up by a number of Muslim politicians and Muslim groups and organizations that consider shari’a the best solution for the multi-dimension of socio-economic and political crisis upon the downfall of the New Order Regime in 1998. They believe that shari’a enforcement not only fits the spirit of democracy, assuming that the majority of population in the country is Muslims, but also offers a comprehensive solution to the crisis. Unfortunately, this idea is not grounded on a comprehensive apprehension to the nature of shari’a itself and pluralistic Indonesian society but more on political impetus, namely a strong plea to realize an Islamic state that integrates the state and religion and Islam and politics. By examining the Kompilasi Hukum Islam, as one example of shari’a legislation in Indonesia, this article demonstrates the problems of Islamic reform that most proponents of shari’a application have overlooked. It argues that application of religious law by the state must consider the methodology of the law and its impacts for broader society.

This article discusses the history of the establishment of Islamic banking in Indonesia. The author examines the derivers of their establishment and argues that, aside other aspects, political aspects give contribution to the establishment of the Islamic banking. He describes a number of evidences of how politics play an important role in the success of their establishment; one of those proofs is the economic and political Islam interdependence which can be read in the idea of ​​Indonesian Muslims on establishing Islamic banks, which is influenced by political content. At the beginning, the relationship between Muslims and the New Order was covered with suspicions and prejudices. The rulers of the New Order in the 1970's were still suspicious of the idea on the establishment of an Islamic state or the realization of the Jakarta Charter. Until recent days, the idea is still debated.

Resumo Uma das reivindicações centrais dos movimentos políticos islâmicos é cumprir ou impor a sharī'a. Mas a visão que esses movimentos têm destoa da maneira como os sistemas jurídicos muçulmanos funcionaram historicamente. A própria definição de sharī'a, sua relação com o poder político, e sua aplicação num processo que leva a uma decisão jurídica, foram simplificados durante o processo de codificação dos séculos XIX e XX, e os movimentos islamistas são herdeiros dessa concepção "ocidentalizada" de sharī'a. Frequentemente traduzido com "lei religiosa" ou "direito islâmico" o termo sharī'a não corresponde ao conceito ocidental de "lei" nem tampouco engloba todo o campo do direito dos povos muçulmanos. Paralelamente à sharī'a, também há o qānūn (o direito do soberano), e as regras derivadas do costume ('urf, adalat). O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a formação da dualidade entre sharī'a e qānūn no direito muçulmano até a codificação da sharī'a no século XX e a dissolução dessa dualidade nas ideologias islamistas contemporâneas. Palavras-chave: sharī'a; islamismo; direito muçulmano. Abstract One of the main claims of contemporary Islamic political movements is to implement the sharia. But the view of the sharia held by those movements diverges from the Muslim judicial systems as they actually functioned throughout history. The very definition of sharia, its relation with the political power, and its implementation in specific cases, were simplified during the process of codification that took place between the 19th and 20th centuries, and contemporary Islamic movements inherited this "westernized" conception of sharia. Though often translated as "Islamic law", the term does not correspond exactly to the Western concept of "law", and neither does it comprise the whole field of law among Muslim peoples. Parallel to the sharia, there is also the qānūn (the law of the ruler), and the rules derived from costume ('urf, adalat). This article intends to analyze the formation of the duality between sharia and qānūn in Islamic law until the codification of the sharia in the 20th century, and the dissolution of this duality in contemporary Islamist ideologies. Keywords: sharia; Islamism; Islamic law.

Only one fourth of Jordanian women entitled to property inheritance receive it fully. The main reason is that land and property are not formally registered. But this is also due to several strategies to exclude women from inheritance. Social pressure is translated into the "exclusion" (takhāruj) of inheritance rights. This is linked to social norms in favour of male property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Western foreign policy opinion reacts to the perceived Islamic character of foreign actors. Studies show that the target actor’s dominant religion is a key ingredient in foreign policy opinion: Western audiences react more hostilely to “Muslim” than “Christian” targets. Yet, actors differ not only in which world religion they belong to but also how that religion is politicized by themselves and by others. We argue that Islam can be politicized in three major ways—via Islamic rhetoric, policies, and labels—that shape foreign policy attitudes. To examine our claims, we field a survey experiment in which we attach common Islamic rhetoric (“Allahu Akbar”), policies (“Shari’a law”), and/or labels (“Islamist”) to a foreign actor in the context of the Syrian civil conflict. We find that these cues strongly harm attitudes toward the actor, and the results vary widely by type. Indeed, the Shari’a policy cue does the most damage to attitudes, emotions, and preferences toward the actor. Moreover, the Islamic cues reinforce each other in fueling these fearful reactions and are particularly potent on conservative citizens. These results paint a richer picture of how out-group religious cues influence foreign policy attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates howShari’ais experienced in the everyday life of 57 Muslims from Western Sydney. It focuses on their opinions about its application in Australia, and on how they negotiate their lives around the necessity or non-necessity of adhering toShari’aprinciples. The findings show that their observance of Islam tends to be negotiated in their everyday life within the framework of the Australian law, to which they show strong adherence. Respondents strongly reported the inaccurate picture ofShari’athat the media have painted. For this reason, the informants are reticent to have discussions in the public sphere about the implementation of officially recognisedShari’awithin an Australian legal system for fear that it would stoke the flames of Islamophobic sentiment. This is an impediment to the development of a post-secular Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study is the first attempt (in the field of Law and Economics) to apply economic analysis to shari'a or Islamic criminal law, in particular, that aspect of the law pertaining to theft. Shari'a imposes two main punishments for theft; hadd, a fixed penalty of amputation of the offender's right hand under certain conditions and ta'zir, a discretionary punishment, less severe than hadd. From the viewpoint of marginal deterrence and multiplier principles, lesser crimes with low social harm are punished more severely with hadd whereas crimes with high social harm are punished with ta'zir. Moreover, as the probability of detection and sanction is less in those crimes of high social harm, criminals would have more incentive to commit them. Consequently, if Islamic criminal law is to be applied in its current form, crimes of high social cost are likely to become more frequent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The democratization of politics has been accompanied by a rise of Islamic laws in many Muslimmajority countries. Despite a growing interest in the phenomenon, the Islamization of politics in democratizing Muslim-majority countries is rarely understood as a process that unfolds across space and time. Based on an original dataset established during years of field research in Indonesia, this article analyzes the spread of shari'a regulations across the world's largest Muslim-majority democracy since 1998. The article shows that shari'a regulations in Indonesia diffused unevenly across space and time. Explanations put forward in the literature on the diffusion of morality policies in other countries such as geographic proximity, institutions, intergovernmental relations and economic conditions did not explain the patterns in the diffusion of shari'a regulations in Indonesia well. Instead, shari'a regulations in Indonesia were most likely to spread across jurisdictions where local Islamist groups situated outside the party system had an established presence. In short, the Islamization of politics was highly contingent on local conditions. Future research will need to pay more attention to local Islamist activists and networks situated outside formal politics as potential causes for the diffusion of shari'a law in democratizing Muslim-majority countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the general principles of legal regulation of inheritance of the Civil code in force and their comparison with those prevailing in Muslim law. The Muslim law of inheritance ab intestat -the only "legal one" because really the Muslim law is not recognized in "testamentary succession"- it produces awe to the one who discovers. Its technique, but mostly the principles with which they are at the base and the spirit that it animates (it might not be without regard for the sacred), constitute difficulties for lawyer largely influenced by French law. More than in any other system of law, we need to look in history, not so much due to tracking descendants, about which we know quite a bit, as well as with the purpose to avoid countermeasures meanings in terms of the spirit that animates this right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the slow eclipse of the rehabilitative ideal within the Sudanese prison system in the period from independence in 1956 till the removal of the third parliamentary regime in 1989. It contends that Jacfar Numayri's ‘Islamization’ of the criminal and penal system in 1983, which has been interpreted by some as an act of religious revival aiming to replace a series of externally imposed and European laws, cannot be understood purely in cultural terms. It will demonstrate that the Sudanese prison professionals of the post-colonial era pursued rehabilitative ideals with greater enthusiasm than their colonial predecessors. However, they were hampered by the limited resources offered to them by a government that became increasingly less interested in infrastructural social control and more concerned with exercising direct physical violence against both political and non-political transgessors of the state's law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The post-Cold War conditions created new socio-political spaces in Kenya for new articulations of Muslim women’s public activism and leadership. This essay focuses on two such Muslim women in terms of their leadership responses to issues of Muslim women’s rights in Kenya as framed within a secular paradigm, on the one hand, and within an Islamic one, on the other. In spite of their differences, the essay concludes the efforts of the two leaders complement each other in fundamental ways, especially with regards to their contributions to the national debates on the Shari’a and the reform of the Kadhi’s Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]