Authors: Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Barbara Freyer Stowasser
ISBN-13: 9780759106710, ISBN-10: 0759106711
Format: Paperback
Publisher: AltaMira Press
Date Published: April 2004
Edition: 1st Edition
Since Europeans first colonized Arab lands in the 19th century, they have been pressing to have the area's indigenous laws and legal systems accord with Western models. Although most Arab states now have national codes of law that reflect Western influence, fierce internal struggles continue over how to interpret Islamic law, particularly in the areas of gender and family. From different geographical and ideological points across the contemporary Arab world, Haddad and Stowasser demonstrate the range of views on just what Islam's legal heritage in the region should be. For either law or religion classes, Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity provides the broad historical overview and particular cases needed to understand this contentious issue.
Acknowledgments | ||
Introduction : Islamic law and the challenge of modernity | 1 | |
Pt. 1 | Modernization and legal reform in the Arab world | |
Ch. 1 | Can the Shari'a be restored? | 21 |
Ch. 2 | Inscribing the Islamic Shari'a in Arab constitutional law | 55 |
Ch. 3 | A typology of state Muftis | 81 |
Ch. 4 | A contextual approach to improving asylum law and practices in the middle east | 99 |
Pt. 2 | Legal reforms and the impact on women | |
Ch. 5 | Internationalizing the conversation on women's rights : Arab countries face the CEDAW committee | 133 |
Ch. 6 | Tahlil marriage in Shari'a legal codes, and the contemporary Fatwa literature | 161 |
Ch. 7 | Egyptian feminism : trapped in the identity debate | 183 |
Ch. 8 | Muslim women and legal reforms : the case of Jordan and women's work | 213 |
Bibliography | 233 | |
Glossary | 245 | |
Index | 251 | |
About the contributors | 261 |