Islamic law (the Shari'a) and its application is a central issue in contemporary Islamic politics and culture. Starting from modern concerns, this book examines the origins and evolution of the Shari'a and the corpus of texts, concepts and practices in which it has been enshrined. The central paradox in this history is one of power: the Shari'a is jurist's law, theoretically derived from sacred sources, yet dependent for its institution and application on rulers, with their own agendas and priorities. Sami Zubaida here considers key historical episodes of political accommodations and contests between scholars and sultans. Drawing on modern examples, mainly from Egypt and Iran, Zubaida explores how the Shari'a has evolved and mutated to accommodate the workings of a modern state by examining the reforms of the 19th and 20th centuries and the politics of the contemporary world. Law and Power in the Islamic World is an original and significant contribution to the debates surrounding Islam and ideas of modernity. As such its appeal and importance range across a wide spectrum of readers, students and scholars interested in Islamic law and the politics and social structures of the Muslim world. "Extremely informed and highly readable: unlike any previous writings on the subject, it combines deep historical analysis with a vital sociological and political perspective. In these difficult times, it will be required reading both for experts and for the general reader with any serious interest in the world today." Eberhard Kienle, SOAS.

Focuses on a Muslim legal science known in Arabic as usul al-fiqh. Whereas the kindred science of fiqh is concerned with the articulation of actual rules of law, this science attempts to elaborate the theoretical and methodological foundations of the law. It outlines the features of Muslim juristic thought.

How religious barriers stalled capitalism in the Middle East In the year 1000, the economy of the Middle East was at least as advanced as that of Europe. But by 1800, the region had fallen dramatically behind—in living standards, technology, and economic institutions. In short, the Middle East had failed to modernize economically as the West surged ahead. What caused this long divergence? And why does the Middle East remain drastically underdeveloped compared to the West? In The Long Divergence, one of the world's leading experts on Islamic economic institutions and the economy of the Middle East provides a new answer to these long-debated questions. Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism. Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life—including private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange. By the nineteenth century, modern economic institutions began to be transplanted to the Middle East, but its economy has not caught up. And there is no quick fix today. Low trust, rampant corruption, and weak civil societies—all characteristic of the region's economies today and all legacies of its economic history—will take generations to overcome. The Long Divergence opens up a frank and honest debate on a crucial issue that even some of the most ardent secularists in the Muslim world have hesitated to discuss.

The sharia is a set of traditional laws that define a Muslim's obligations to God and his fellow human beings. Westerners often misunderstand the nature of the sharia, born as it is of a complicated legal and academic tradition that may not always seem relevant to today's world. Written for those unfamiliar with Islam, this volume provides an accurate and objective assessment of the sharia's achievements, shortcomings and future prospects. It explores the fundamentals of Islam and traditional sharia laws. In addition, the sharia is discussed with respect to Ottoman law, puritanism and jihad. The sharia's relevance to today's world events is also explored. Among items provided in appendices are a commentary on a Western translation of the concept of jihad and an analysis of the sharia in 29 selected countries.

In The Politics of Islamic Law, Iza Hussin compares India, Malaya, and Egypt during the British colonial period in order to trace the making and transformation of the contemporary category of ‘Islamic law.’ She demonstrates that not only is Islamic law not the shari’ah, its present institutional forms, substantive content, symbolic vocabulary, and relationship to state and society—in short, its politics—are built upon foundations laid during the colonial encounter. Drawing on extensive archival work in English, Arabic, and Malay—from court records to colonial and local papers to private letters and visual material—Hussin offers a view of politics in the colonial period as an iterative series of negotiations between local and colonial powers in multiple locations. She shows how this resulted in a paradox, centralizing Islamic law at the same time that it limited its reach to family and ritual matters, and produced a transformation in the Muslim state, providing the frame within which Islam is articulated today, setting the agenda for ongoing legislation and policy, and defining the limits of change. Combining a genealogy of law with a political analysis of its institutional dynamics, this book offers an up-close look at the ways in which global transformations are realized at the local level.

Perhaps no other Western writer has more deeply probed the bitter struggle in the Muslim world between the forces of religion and law and those of violence and lawlessness as Noah Feldman. His scholarship has defined the stakes in the Middle East today. Now, in this incisive book, Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world. Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed--should it? Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power. The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the sweeping history of the traditional Islamic constitution--its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike.