Islamic Law Contents

Islamic law derives from the Koran (Q’uran) and from the Sunnah and hadith: the writings of prophets and scholars, mostly until the fall of Baghdad in 13th Century.

Islamic law: God’s law or men’s law?

Understanding Islamic law from a legal pluralist perspective
The Qur’anic base and its application
The Prophet’s roles: leader, judge and guide
Early Islamic law after the Prophet’s death
Legal developments in the early Muslim empire: the Umayyads
Scholar-jurists and the Abbasids
The central role of jurists:

• Schools of law and competing doctrines
• Shafi’i scheme to unify Muslim jurisprudence
• Hadith collections and the ‘Schacht controversy’

Continuing diversities after Shafi’i
Judicial administration: qadis and muftis
Subsidiary sources of law
The purported closing of the ‘gates of ijtihad’
The shift towards legal reforms
Turkey as a secular Muslim country
Pakistani law and Islamisation

Islamic Law Resources

Within this entry the user will find links to other entries dealing with islamic law and the law of countries with a high muslim population. We chose a subdivision according to the countries. Each country was – to give the user a plus of clarity – once more subdivided in the following points:

• Constitution and Basic Legal Documents
• Government and Legal System Overview
• Business and Investment Law
• Laws and Regulations
• Agreements and Treaties
• Opposition and Minority Groups
• Human Rights
• Miscellaneous

See Also

• Legal Systems
• Comparative Law Contents
• Hindu Law in General
• Chinese Law in General
• Common Law Systems
• Code Law Systems
• Socialist Legal Systems
• English Law System
• English Common Law
• Rules
• International Customary Law
• Rule of law
• Adversarial System
• Inquisitorial Legal System
• Legal Pluralism
• Legal Positivism
• Islamic Development Bank
• Muslim Law System
• Encyclopedia of Islamic Law: a Compendium of the Views of the Major Schools
• Islamic Dinar
• John Rawls and the Islamic Constitutional model
• Legal Systems

Further Reading

• The Spirit of Islamic Law – Bernard G. Weiss
• Origins And Evolution Islamic Law – Cambridge University Press
• The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East by Kuran, T., published by Princeton University Press
• Islamic Law and Society. ISSN 0928-9380, Publisher: BRILL
• H.A.R. GIBB (ED.), ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ISLAM (Leiden 1999, also CD-ROM ed.)
• JOSEPH SCHACHT, AN INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC LAW (1986)
• FAROOQ HASSAN, THE CONCEPT OF STATE AND LAW IN ISLAM 40 (1981)
• ASAF ALI ASGAR FYZEE, OUTLINES OF MOHAMMEDAN LAW (4th ed. 1974)
• Hassan Afchar, “The Muslim Conception of Law”, The Different Conceptions of the Law, 2 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMPARATIVE LAW, THE LEGAL SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD: THEIR COMPARISON AND UNIFICATION 84, 98-99 (1974)
• Nicholas Heer (ed.), Islamic Law and Jurisprudence (1990).
• MICHEL J. VERWILGHEN, LE STATUT PERSONNEL DES MUSULMANS: DROIT COMPARà‰ ET DROIT INTERNATIONAL PRIVà‰ (1992).
• Deprez, J., Droit international privè et conflits de civilisations. Aspects mèthodologiques (Les relations entre systèmes d’Europe occidentale et systèmes islamiques en matière de statut personnel), 211 REC. DES COURS 9 (1988)
• Detmold, Michael, Provocation to Murder: Sovereignty and Multiculture, 18 SYDNEY L. REV. 1 (1997)
• ELGEDDAWY, A. KESSMAT, RELATIONS ENTRE SYSTàˆMES CONFESSIONNEL ET LAàQUE EN DROIT INTERNATIONAL PRIVà‰ (1971)
• ROSEN, LAWRENCE, THE JUSTICE OF ISLAM: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON ISLAMIC LAW AND SOCIETY 200-15 (2000), Ch. 12, “Islam and Islamic culture in the courts of the United States”.
• FIERRO, M, REPERTORIO BIBLIOGà€FICO DE DERECHO ISLàMICO (R.B.D.I.), primera parte, Quadernos de la biblioteca islámica “Felix Maria Parega”(Madrid 1993).
• Makdisi, John, Islamic Law Bibliography, 78 LAW LIBRARY J. 103 (1986)
• NYAZEE, IMRAN AHSAN KHAN, BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ISLAMIC LAW: THE ORIGINAL SOURCES (1995)
• Stern, William B., Bibliography of Mohammedan Law, 43 LAW LIBRARY J. 16 (1950)
• ZWAINI, LAILA AL- AND RUDOLPH PETERS, A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ISLAMIC LAW, 1980-1993 (1994)