Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-7tdvq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-14T21:40:13.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Place of Islamic Law in Modern Arab Legal Systems: A Brief for Researchers and Reference Librarians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2019

George N. Sfeir
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Ever since Joseph Schacht, whose book An Introduction to Islamic Law is on the short list of books on Middle East law, said that Islamic law is the epitome of Islamic thought, in other words, you can't understand Islam without understanding Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies and their journals invariably include classical Islamic law in their coverage of the subject with little attention given to modern legislation. This is particularly obvious in the bibliography of periodical literature which disregards the increasing number of studies on the modern law of the Middle East appearing in law journals. Even entries described as positive law, a category recently added to John and Marianne Makdisi's eminently useful compilation on Islamic law, comes no closer to giving a realistic picture of the applicable law. To illustrate what I mean, titles under positive law dealing with insurance, banking, and interest, concentrate on Islamic law's position on these subject-matters at a time when modern legislation in most Arab states has completely discarded that position.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Legal Information , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Spring 2000 , pp. 117 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the International Association of Law Libraries 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Islamic Law Bibliography: Revised and Updated List of Secondary Sources, 87 Law Library Journal (Winter 1995) 69–191.Google Scholar

2. Austin & Winfield, San Fancisco, Bethesda, London, 1998, distributed by University Press of America, Lanham, MD.Google Scholar

3. Published by Graham & Trotman, member of Kluwer, London, Dordrecht, Boston, in association with International Bar Association, 1987.Google Scholar

4. Sezare Beccaria, On Crime and Punishment (1764), Engl. trans. by David Young (Indianapolis 1986).Google Scholar

5. For a background to the jurisdiction of religious tribunals and their abolition, see George N. Sfeir, The Abolition of Confessional Jurisdiction in Egypt: The Non-Muslim Courts, The Middle East Journal 10, no.3, at 248 (Summer 1956).Google Scholar

6. For a discussion of Saudi legal reform, see George N. Sfeir, The Saudi Approach to Law Reform, 36 The American Journal of Comparative Law, at 729 (1988).Google Scholar

7. Kluwer Law International, 1996.Google Scholar

8. Kluwer Law International, 1996.Google Scholar

9. Graham & Trotman/Kluwer Academic, 1995.Google Scholar