Law and Islam in the Middle East

Islam varies widely across the Middle East in practice, legal and theological orientation, attitude toward women, and role in government and society. The Middle.
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Staff 28 December Ibrahimova, Roza 27 July Library of Congress Country Studies: The September implementation of the sharia throughout the country had been controversial and provoked widespread resistance in the predominantly non-Muslim south Opposition to the sharia, especially to the application of hudud sing. Islam in Africa South of the Sahara: Essays in Gender Relations and Political Reform, pp. Retrieved 4 April Political Islam, World Politics and Europe. Sharia and National Law in Muslim Countries. Retrieved 10 December Retrieved 27 August Stahnke, Tad and Robert C.

Retrieved 11 March Retrieved 18 February Retrieved 3 October New York University School of Law. Haut-Commissariat aux droits de l'homme. Retrieved 9 July Library of Congress, USA. Retrieved 19 February Council on Foreign Relations. Government of Morocco, Article Library of Congress, U. Newman 30 October Crime and Punishment around the World: Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa.

Legal Rights and Economic Opportunities in Africa. More recently a personal status code in accordance with the Sharia for Senegalese Muslims instead of the present Family Code was adopted and propagated by the Islamic Committee for the Reform of the Family Code in Senegal. United Nations News Center Archived from the original on 2 April Johansson Dahre, Ulf, ed.

Retrieved 21 February Retrieved 10 January American University International Law Review. Encyclopedia of World Constitutions. Retrieved 20 August Retrieved 2 December A World Survey of Religion and the State. Retrieved 7 May A History of Modern Iran. Cambridge, UK; New York: They allowed women to study abroad on state scholarships. They even passed bills directly contradicting traditional interpretations of the sharia.

They eliminated all distinctions between men and women, between Muslims and non-Muslims, in accepting witnesses in court and awarding monetary compensations for damages.

Sharia Showdown

They increased the marriageable age for girls to fifteen from thirteen. They reopened the judiciary to women. They gave them equal rights in divorce courts and permitted them to have custody rights over children under the age of seven. Never before in the Middle East had a freely elected parliament so blatantly challenged basic tenets of the sharia.


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He ruled that the law should not differentiate between the sexes, and that women should have the right to become presidents, chief judges, and even Supreme Leaders. Laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan". Price; Stefaan Verhulst; Libby Morgan Routledge Handbook of Media Law. World Intellectual Property Organization. In Terengganu, where PAS took over the State government between and , a hudud law was also passed.


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    • On November 25, , the State Legislative Assembly unanimously approved the hudud law. Recent Trends and Challenges. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Challenging the Secular State: The Islamization of Law in Modern Indonesia. University of Hawaii Press. The bill, however, was rejected by the Malaysian federal government on the grounds that it clashed with the federal constitution. Retrieved 23 February Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Newman 19 October Crime and Punishment around the World [4 volumes]: Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication.

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    Retrieved 14 January According to Article 1: Qatar is an independent Arab country. Islam is its religion and Islamic law is the main source of its legislation. Retrieved 19 March Qatar Financial Information Unit. Sri Lanka Daily News. Retrieved 21 August Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Grigoriadis 30 October Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: Retrieved 31 August Retrieved 5 September Whose law counts most?

    Retrieved 6 September Retrieved 16 January The role of the Mufti and of the sacred law of Islam in the Greek legal system. Diploma paper submitted to the Democritian University of Thrace in Greek. See Islamic criminal law in Aceh. Retrieved 22 August The Shias make the majority of Moslems in Iraq and Iran. All schools of Islamic jurisprudence rely on the texts of the Quran and the Hadith.

    The primary differences between them stem from the different interpretations of the texts of the Quran and the Hadith, and from the secondary sources which they use for solving religious and legal issues. As indicated before, there is no single uniform Middle East or Arab law, nor is there one uniform legal system for all Arab countries, though most of the Arab countries have adopted the codified civil law system, based on the Egyptian Civil Code, as opposed to the English common law system.

    During the Ottoman Empire before the first World War, the Ottoman government compiled the jurisprudence of the Hanafi school in a uniform Civil Code called "Majella", which was applied to Arab countries, which were parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Majella continued to be applied in most Arab countries after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, until each Arab country developed its own legal system and enacted a Civil Code. Under the rule of the Western colonial powers, the influence of Western laws particularly those of the French codified legal system and the French Civil Code grew in the Arab countries, and the legislative process of reconciling between the Sharia and the Western laws gradually began 1.

    Consequently, the direct application of Islamic law continued to decrease. The Egyptian Civil Code of was the first and a successful product of the aforesaid process.

    The author of the Egyptian Civil Code, Dr. Sanhuri, succeeded to reconcile and bring together in harmony the principles of Sharia and the provisions of European Civil Codes and in particular the French Civil Code. Thus, one of the common features between the laws of the Arab countries is the similarity or even uniformity of the provisions of the Civil Codes. Another major common feature is the application of Islamic law in all Arab countries whether directly or indirectly, as it will be elaborated later. As understood from the foregoing introduction, there is no single or uniform Arab or Middle East law, but the laws of the Arab countries share together many common features and similarities, which render a comparative view of those laws a matter of interest to lawyers.

    In addition to the application of Sharia, the influence of the Majella and the uniformity of the source of Arab Civil Codes as mentioned before, there are other common factors such as interchanges of judges and jurists between Arab countries, common history and common language, which all together have created a common legal approach and jurisprudence between the Arab countries.

    There is no single rule as when and where Sharia applies; its application varies from one country to another and depends on the religious and social structure of the society, the legal system, and the provisions of the constitution and the Civil Code of each Arab country. Sharia may apply either directly as a common law of the country, where there is no fully developed codified legal system, or indirectly through the application of statute law based fully or partly on Islamic law, or as a source of law to fill legislative gaps when a particular statute lacks the necessary provisions.

    In these countries, family laws were enacted based on one or more of the Islamic schools referred to before, while commercial and civil codes are based on European and to some extent on Islamic law. In the said countries where a complete civil law legal system was founded, the Sharia domination or application in matters other than the family law also varies depending on the provisions of the constitution and the Civil Code of the country.

    A primary source of law or the source of law. Consequently, and in cases of legislative lacuna where the law lacks a provision, the Sharia principles are to fill the gap either as the first source or as one of the sources of law 2. Where the constitution describes Sharia as "The" principal source of legislation, the hierarchy implies that all other laws and statues must comply with the principles of Sharia. Whether this has been complied with is another question, as we shall see later.

    The following is a short survey of specific provisions of the constitutions and the Civil Codes of some Arab countries which have dealt with the application of the Sharia. Al Azhar contended that the provisions of the Civil Code granting interest such as Article 0f the Egyptian Civil Code became unconstitutional in view of the amended Article 2 of the Constitution, which adopted Sharia as THE main source of legislation.

    The Special Commission which prepared the amendment of the Constitution in reported that the purpose of article 2 of the Constitution is:. May that no legislation in the future should contradict the formal rules of Sharia. It is noted that according to this article, Sharia is a principle source, and not the source of legislation. In , the Kuwaiti Constitutional Court dismissed a claim that the Kuwaiti Civil Code that provides for interest was unconstitutional and contrary to Article 2 of the Constitution.

    The Court stated that Article 2 of the Constitution is a political directive to the legislator to adopt provisions of Sharia as far as possible. Sharia is a source, not the sole source and there is nothing to prevent the legislative from applying other sources, other than Sharia. In UAE the matter is somewhat ambiguous, because, while Article 7 of the UAE Constitution has the Sharia as a principal source of legislation, Article 75 of the Law of the Union Supreme Court of provides that the Supreme Court shall first apply Sharia and other laws in force if conforming to the Sharia principles.

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    It may also apply custom, if such custom does not conflict with the principles of the Sharia. Apart from the provisions of the Constitution, Article 1 of the Civil Code refers to Sharia as the first source of law in case of lack of any legislative provision. Also, Article 3 of the Civil Code stipulates that public policy rules are those which are not contrary to the basic principles of Sharia.

    Furthermore, Article 27 of the Civil Code provides that in case of conflict of laws no law contrary to Sharia can be applied, and public policy and morals are applicable. Here, we have constitutional provisions where Sharia is recognised only as a source of law, while the Civil Code and the aforesaid law of of the Supreme Court establishing the highest court consider Sharia as THE source of law.

    The extent of the application of Sharia was raised in a number of cases in the highest court of appeal in UAE. The court ruled in a case, the Sharia is THE principal source of law, and above all other laws. But, it is for the legislator to implement that when enacting new legislation 6 , as we shall elaborate later. This and other similar cases in Arab countries demonstrate the difficulties and the conflict between the principles of Sharia and the secular laws. They also show how the courts avoided the application of Sharia often on a doubtful legal reasoning, as it will be explained later.

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    In Saudi Arabia, the Basic Law of confirmed that Quran and Hadith are the sole sources of law and that all laws and regulations must conform to Sharia, which is the common law of the country. It follows that no foreign judgement nor any contractual provision contrary to Islamic principles may be enforced in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia follows strictly the Wahabee School, which developed out of Hanbali school of jurisprudence, though there exists a large Shia minority in Saudi Arabia. As stated before,Article 1 of the UAE Civil Code states that in cases when there is no provision in the Civil Code, the judge must first rule in accordance with the Sharia, giving preference to Maliki and Hanbali schools.

    And in the absence of that, the judge shall apply rules of custom, if consistent with public order and morals. Article 2 of the Jordanian Civil Code stipulates that in the absence of applicable law, the court applies the principles of Sharia, and in case of lack of any Sharia rule, the court applies rules of custom, and then principles of justice provided that the applicable custom is consistent with public order and morals.

    It is worthwhile to note, that the UAE Civil Code as well as the Jordanian Civil Code, have made Sharia as the first source of law in the absence of an applicable provision in the law, unlike other Arab Civil Codes which refer to the application of Sharia only after and in the absence of a relevant provision of law and a rule of custom. Article 5 of the Commercial Code of of Oman provided that if there is no express provision, custom shall apply, and in the absence of custom, the judge shall apply the principles of Sharia.

    Article 1 of each of the Civil Code of Egypt and Iraq contains similar provisions that in the absence of any applicable legislative provisions, the court shall adjudicate according to custom and usage, and in the absence of applicable custom and usage, the court shall apply the principles of Sharia, which are most consistent with the provisions of the law.

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    And in the absence of the applicable custom or principles of Sharia, the general principles of justice shall be applicable. Article 1 of the Kuwaiti Civil Code of stipulates that Sharia applies in case of absence of an express legislative provision and only after the absence of relevant rule of custom. In cases where the Civil or the Commercial Code of an Arab state refers to Sharia as a source of law in absence of a relevant rule of custom and an express provision of law, a question arises as to whether it is permissible to apply a custom if contrary to the public order and morals or the principles of Sharia.

    They remain the dominant opposition to the surviving monarchies and military dictatorships. The most overtly religious states are Saudi Arabia and Iran, both of which claim to be Islamic states and implement Islamic law. Forms of states differ—Saudi Arabia is a Sunni monarchy, while Iran is a Shii republic that holds elections. About What's New Log in. Select Translation Selections include: The Koran Interpreted, a translation by A. Arberry, first published ; The Qur'an, translated by M.