Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity is a collection of essays that centers on the theme identified in the title. The book specifically deals with Islamic law in the Arab world, and how the legal tradition in the region has changed through the introduction of modern, European-based codes, first by the Ottoman Empire and later as a result of European colonialism. For the most part, however, the book fails to meet its objective and appears more as a collection of half complete and poorly edited papers.
The introductory chapter of the book proved promising; it acts as a tutorial for those unfamiliar with Islamic law. The foundational texts, which are not limited to the Koran, the four main legal schools, and the differences between shari'a, or revealed law, and fiqh, or the complex system of jurisprudence that applies shari'a, are all explained. It also provided a referential argument which many of the following chapters repeated: pre-modern Islamic law was flexible and in a process of constant change in reaction to social necessities, while the introduction of the modern state entrenched an immutable form of law that destroyed this flexibility in favor of certainty and centralized power. However, the straightforward and interesting first chapter soon gives way to a jumble of unresolved arguments, cursory descriptions, and confusing publishing and layout.
The first section of the book is titled 'Modernization and Legal Reform in the Arab World' and second 'Legal Reforms and the Impact on Women.' In the first section, the argument from the introduction is taken a step further, and it is assumed that a return to an 'authentic' version of Islamic legal traditions is a cause with unquestionable worth. This search for authenticity is accompanied in one case by an overt desire to return to an authentic shari'a and fiqh based legal system. In delineating the requirements of such a return, Wael B. Hallaq states "The Iranian experience affords an eloquent example of the combination of political and legal governing." (p. 47). Post-revolution Iran is perhaps one of the states that has been most challenged by the norms of modernity, and yet the pervasive power of the politico-religious elite would not be possible without the control apparatuses of the modern state. This quest for the authentic is fodder for Said's critique of Orientalism. The taxonomic descriptions of the real shari'a of pre-modernity and the inauthentic shari'a used and adapted by Arab states, and their cursory forays into the application of each of these in a number of political and geographical areas, is not persuasive scholarship.
The second section also often utilizes a romantic version of pre-modern Islamic law, this time in the attempt to make liberal feminism and Islam coexist culturally, politically and legally. The chapter by Barbara Freyer Stowasser and Zeinab AbulMagd provides an interesting account of how the pre-modern loopholes in Islamic marriage law are slowly being closed by the state; however, the second section is not especially well done. For the most part the argumentation is difficult to follow; when they are obvious, as in the case of the chapter on the Arab states' responses to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, they are overly polemical. This particular chapter is simply a summary of the browbeating received by Arab diplomats at the United Nations for their respective countries' non-compliance with the Convention. --- READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment