The Siyar — An Islamic Law Of Nations?

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Iman Bouzenita

AbstractThis article deals with an essential part of Islamic law usually referred to as siyar. It discusses the development of siyar in an Islamic context and in comparison to the development of the modern law of nations. It further follows up the evaluation of siyar in the Western literature and analyses recurring paradigms of categorisation used in this literature. The author discusses Kruse's (1979) approach to differentiate between an "Islamic" and a "Muslim" law of nations. As case studies of argumentative weaknesses and loopholes, the author scrutinizes the attempts to attribute siyar to a particular type of law of nations and to render it as a legal order of either personal or territorial validity. The article focuses on methodological aspects involved in presenting two independent legal systems as commensurable. The author concludes that a terminological transfer, be it with the intention of explaining Islamic legal concepts to a non-specialized reader, be it with the intention to reconcile between both systems, cannot do justice to either one of the legal systems.

Author(s):  
Eisenberg David M

This chapter examines the sources and principles of Islamic law. A broad understanding of the sources and principles of Islamic law is prerequisite to an examination of the legal foundations of Islamic finance. Islamic law comprises a complex and vast body of doctrine that has taken shape in extremely varied circumstances for well over a millennium as part and parcel of an evolutionary process still vigorously underway. The chapter then describes the technical terminology employed by Muslim jurists across the entire field of Islamic law. All the technical terminology is in Arabic but exact or rough equivalents can be found in other legal systems. The chapter also looks at the legal concepts relevant to Islamic finance from a historical perspective as the point of departure for an exposition of the Islamic law of contract, for which they provide the conceptual underpinnings.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-75
Author(s):  
Dr. Anke Iman Bouzenita

The current discourse on bioethical questions often reveals a certain patchiness or seeming inability to answer contemporary bioethical problems within an Islamic epistemological paradigm. Attempting to analyze the causes of this phenomenon, the author describes the decontextualization of Islamic concepts from a background of secularized medical care and the ethics in the Islamic world—as well as the estrangement due to these questions of Islamic law from its holistic framework of application as a pervasive phenomenon, which brought about the dilemmas of bioethics in the twenty-first century. The author discusses chosen bioethical case studies in this light, with a focus on the concept of brain death. Doing so, the author takes into consideration the paradigmatic relationship between science, bioethical models, and the implications of the relevant different worldviews. The author shows how constructed realities related to the life sciences have been imported from the secular setting into an already estranged Islamic context to be answered, and describes the evolving dilemmas that make Islamic bioethics appear like a stranger moving in a strange land.


Author(s):  
عليان بوزيان

تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى استثمار نظرية المقاصد الشرعية لإدراك جوهر القانون، ومحاولة التقريب والمصالحة بين نظرة الشريعة إلى المصالح الإنسانية المعتبرة، ونظرة النظم القانونية المقارنة إليها، وصولاً إلى مجموعة القيم المعيارية الحاكمة، في صياغة تشريع معياري يتناسب مع المجتمعات الإسلامية. وكشفت الدراسة عن الحاجة إلى تأسيس علم مقاصد القانون طلباً لمقاصد كلية قطعية يقْطَع بها الخلاف، فحيثما أسفر وجه الحق والعدل والمصلحة فثم مقصد القانون، ومن شأن ذلك فإن أسلمة المعرفة القانونية تمثل نقطة الانعطاف في إعادة بعث الجانب التشريعي من الشريعة، عن طريق تفعيل أدوات الفكر المقاصدي، واستثمارها في تحديد فلسفة التشريع الوضعي. This study aims to apply the theory of Islamic legal purposes to grasp the essence of the civil law, and try to converge and reconcile perspective of Sharia on the legitimate interests of people, and the comparative legal systems, to develop governing normative values that are necessary to  draft normative legislation, commensurate to Muslim societies. The study revealed the need to establish a discipline of the purposes of the civil law applied for the universal purposes that settle disagreement. Where truth, justice and interest are emerged the civil law will be there. Islamization of legal knowledge represents a turning point in reviving the legislative side of Islamic law, by using the tools of maqasid thought, to determine the philosophy of civil legislation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Farihan Aulia ◽  
Sholahuddin Al-Fatih

The legal system or commonly referred to as the legal tradition, has a wealth of scientific treasures that can be examined in more depth through a holistic and comprehensive comparative process. Exactly, the comparison of the legal system must accommodate at least three legal systems that are widely used by countries in the world today. The three legal systems are the Continental European legal system, Anglo American and Islamic Law. The comparative study of the three types of legal systems found that the history of the Continental European legal system is divided into 6 phases, while Anglo American legal history began in the feudalistic era of England until it developed into America and continues to be studied until now. Meanwhile, the history of Islamic law is divided into 5 phases, starting from the Phase of the Prophet Muhammad to the Resurrection Phase (19th century until nowadays). In addition to history, the authors find that the Continental European legal system has the characteristic of anti-formalism thinking, while the Anglo American legal thinking characteristic tends to be formalism and is based on a relatively primitive mindset. While the thinking character of Islamic Law is much influenced by the thought of the fuqoha (fiqh experts) in determining the law to solve a problem, so relatively dynamic and moderate.


QAWWAM ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-122
Author(s):  
Nurmala Fahriyanti

In Mataram West Nusa Tenggara, people is lives are regulated on daily basis by religious law, traditional (adat) law and state law. To understand these complex cultural and religious processes as they affect women in particular, I will examine the issue of divorce, also known as sue divorce. This tipe of divorce is socially-sanctioned. I will focus my examination in Mataram, an city of Lombok West Nusa Tenggara. In Lombok society marriage constitutes an important part of the life cycle.  Someone is not considered an adult until marriage.  Marriage is not only united two individual, but also united two families. However this dream canot be realized over the long term.  If family problems arise and  there are no suitable solutions, people may choose to divorce. For instance, if a wife unable to fulfill her obligations as a wife, her husband can divorce her by verbal means alone, according to any of the three existing legal systems (religious customary or state law). By contrast, if her husband unable to fulfill her obligations as a husband his wife can divorce him in only one way by making an application to Islamic Court to do divorce. In marriage available successful couple builds the family that sakinah, mawaddah and warahmah. But then available also that unsuccessful and end with separate or divorce. Separate constitutes a thing that often happens deep good human life divorce the initiating from the husband and also divorce the initiating from the wife, that its cause islamic law puts attention that adequately significant to that thing. It can appear if understand about islamic law, undoubtedly will find both of previous thing and its terminological  islamic law. There is no divorce without started by marriage. But upon that aim not attained, therefore divorce constitutes last way out that must been sailed through. Divorce can't be done but there is grounds which corrected by religion, adat and state law. In islamic law, that divorce grounds experience developing according to social development. Basically islamic law establishes that divorce reason which is wrangle which really culminates and jeopardize the so called soul safety with “ syiqaq ”. Intention is if worried a couple its happening dispute (dispute not only means wrangle among husband or wife can also distinctive principle and opinion) therefore delegate a someone of its husband family and a someone of wife family. And if both of wife and husband will goodness and they can make resolution and look for the solution, but if there are suitable solution wife or husband can do divorce.


Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Razaana Denson

The article discusses and compares the dissolution of a marriage as well as the legal consequences thereof in Islamic law, South African law and English law. This is done in order to demonstrate that despite similarities, there are vast differences between the three legal systems. This impacts on how Muslim personal law (MPL) can be recognised and regulated in South Africa and in England and Wales as constitutional democracies. South Africa, England and Wales share a commitment to human rights and have adopted various approaches in respect of accommodating the application of Islamic law. Internal pluralism also exists within the Muslim communities in South Africa, England and Wales as the majority of Muslims in these countries have to varying degrees developed diverse strategies to ensure compliance with Islamic law, as well as with South African and English law. Notwithstanding the accommodation of MPL in terms of South African and English law, the differences between these legal systems have resulted in decisions that, while providing relief to the lived realities of Muslims, are in fact contrary to the teachings and principles of Islam and therefore problematic for Muslims.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Klara Kranebitter

Abstract Legal concepts are generally deeply rooted in a specific legal system. Even when two legal systems use the same official language, such as Germany and Austria, the system-boundness of their legal concepts may lead to communication problems. German is also an officially recognised minority language in South Tyrol, Italy. In South Tyrol, the local public authorities must use the minority language in their relations with German-speaking citizens. This brought about the need to elaborate a local German legal terminology to express Italian legal concepts. Terminology development efforts intended to promote terminology consistency and avoid an excessive regionalisation of South Tyrolean German, so as to foster communication with the neighbouring German-speaking legal systems. In the last decades, European Union law has led to a growing harmonisation in the legal terminologies of its Member States, facilitating communication between the different legal systems, also with benefits for terminology work in South Tyrol. This paper focuses on how European legal acts impact on national legal terminology and affect German legal terminology in South Tyrol. The considerations set out are based on comparative legal terminology work regarding the Italian and the German-speaking legal systems done at Eurac Research.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Elewa Badar

In 1966, Judge Jessup of the International Court of Justice pointed out that the appearance of an English translation of the teaching on the ‘Islamic law of nations’ of an eighth-century Islamic jurist (Shaybānī) is particularly timely and of so much interest because of the debate over the question whether the international law, of which Hugo Grotius is often called the father, is so completely Western-European in inspiration and outlook as to make it unsuitable for universal application in the context of a much wider and more varied international community of States. However, there has been little analysis of the role of Islam in shaping the modern European law of war and its progeny, international humanitarian law. This article argues that there is a room for the contribution of the Islamic civilisation within international humanitarian law and a conversation between different civilisations is needed in developing and applying international humanitarian law norms.


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