This Nutshell discusses the manner in which Islamic law is applied and adjudicated in modern states. This includes the enactment of legislation derived from Islamic law, the drafting of contracts to comply with Islamic law, and the adjudication of Islamic law disputes in courts in Muslim and non-Muslim majority nations, including the United States. Subject areas include family law, inheritance law, Islamic finance, criminal law, constitutional law, and Islamic law.
Written from an ethnographic perspective, this book investigates the socio-legal aspects of Islamic jurisprudence in Gaza-Palestine. It examines the way judges, lawyers and litigants operate with respect to the law and with each other, particularly given their different positions in the power structure within the court and within society at large. The book aims at elucidating ambivalences in the codified statutes that allow the actors to find practical solutions to their (often) legally unresolved problems and to manipulate the law. The book demonstrates that present-day judges are not only confronted with novel questions they have to find an answer to, but, perhaps more importantly, they are confronted with contradictions between the letter of codified law and their own notions of justice. The author reminds us that these notions of justice should not be set a priori; they are socially constructed in particular time and space. Making a substantial contribution to a number of theoretical debates on family law and gender, the book will appeal to both academic and non-academic readers alike.
"Islamic Law in Canada: Marriage and Divorce provides an analysis of how Canadian society and the Canadian judicial system have responded to the use of the Shari'a to resolve issues relating to Islamic marriage and divorce in Canada. This dissertation explores two instances where Canadian society has been forced to address the role of the Shari'a in Canada and its interaction with Canadian laws and values. The first involves the debate that took place in Ontario over the last decade concerning the use of Islamic arbitration in family matters. This public debate ultimately led to the rejection of faith-based arbitration in that province, a decision apparently consistent with traditional Canadian attitudes towards multiculturalism. The second area of interaction between Canadian and Islamic law is within the Canadian court system itself. In particular, Canadian judges are occasionally required to grapple with Islamic family law issues when rendering judgments on certain cases that appear before them. This dissertation will examine a number of such cases in order to illustrate how the Shari'a has been addressed by Canadian judges. The overall aim of this work is to situate Islamic law within Canada's liberal framework. It is argued that although Canadians are amenable to certain levels of diversity, values that fall outside mainstream liberalism are not granted recognition. This dissertation will also demonstrate that the failure to legitimize Islamic arbitration represents a lost opportunity that would have broadened the scope of Canadian justice to include minority voices. The decision to reject faith-based arbitration will motivate some Muslims to seek justice from ad-hoc bodies of authority. Devoid of government oversight, these forms of underground Islamic justice may negatively affect certain members of Canada's Muslim community." --
This dissertation will examine a number of such cases in order to illustrate how the Shari'a has been addressed by Canadian judges. The overall aim of this work is to situate Islamic law within Canada's liberal framework.
