Islamic Law and the Environment in Indonesia

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Gade
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Critical Gap ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
Environmental Messages

Based on research in Indonesia in 2010–2013, this essay explains how Muslims expect norms of Islamic law to mobilize religious response to environmental crisis. It surveys attempts since the 1990s to develop “environmental fiqh (Muslim jurisprudence)” in Indonesia, justified in theory by rationales such as that actions causing environmental harm stem ultimately from human moral failing, and also that human aims and activities, including those protected by Islamic law, require a healthy biosphere. Many Indonesians expect Islamic ecological rulings to fill a critical gap in global persuasion, and to be successful when other (non-religious) environmental messages fail. Considering several key fatwas (non-binding legal opinions given in answer to a question) from the local level to the national in Indonesia, this paper explains how law and “outreach” (Ind. dakwah) come together to cast Islamic law of the environment in terms of foundational causes and ultimate effects. These religious norms coexist with and complement other globalized constructions (such as those of the nation-state and NGOs) that they increasingly incorporate.

Intentions and their Effects on the Legality of Dispositions and Contracts

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141
Author(s):  
Abdullah Muhammad al-Shami
Keyword(s):  
Basic Principle ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Legal Contract ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
The Right

In Islamic law judgements on any human action are usually evaluated in terms of the intention involved. Accordingly, the rules of substantive issues have to be accommodated under the basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence. The understanding of these principles by the juristic scholar is highly rewarding because it will lead the muftī to the right path in deriving legal opinions from the original sources. The basic principle of Islamic jurisprudence, which stipulates that ‘all actions depend on intentions,’ has played an important role in the construction of Islamic jurisprudence. Moreover, this rule has a special place in the theory of Islamic legal contract. So what is the effect of intention in the validity of human actions and legal contracts? It is known that pure intention has significant effects on spiritual worship and legal contracts of transaction. It also gives guidance for earning rewards from Almighty Allah. This article concentrates on the effect of intention in perpetual worship, the concept of action and intention in Islamic legal works, the kind of contract with all its components, and the jurists' views on the effects of intention in human action and legal contract along with their discussion and counter-arguments.

Evolving Views of Islamic Law in Turkey

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 467-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Powell
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Exceptional Case ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
Turkish Constitution ◽  
The Relationship

The tradition of Kemalist secularism (laiklik) in Turkey is often cited to distinguish Turkey as an exceptional case among predominantly Muslim countries. While it is true that the Turkish Constitution, laws, and legal opinions approach the relationship between the state and religion very differently than those of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or even Indonesia, it would be wrong to underestimate the role that religion plays in the formation of Turkish legal norms, including citizen understanding of those norms. There is a wealth of literature describing the nature of Turkish secularism and its evolution. A number of both quantitative and qualitative studies inquire about the preference forShari'aamong Turkish voters. The typical question asks whether respondents favor the establishment of aShari'astate. Over the past fifteen years, these surveys have received response rates ranging between five and twenty-five percent in favor of such a state. However, these results are extremely problematic, because they do not provide any context or meaning for “the establishment of aShari'astate,” either for those who favor it or for those who oppose it. This study begins to unpack the range of possible meanings attributed toShari'awithin Turkey, both among voters and among intellectuals, as a framework for future empirical studies and as a basis for deeper understandings of the role of Islam within Turkish law and politics.

Translator’s Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Idris al-Qarafi al-Maliki
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Present Volume ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
Substantive Law

This chapter provides an overview of the present volume, which is the first English translation of the Al-I ṭk ām fī Tamyīz al-Fatāwa ʿan al-Aṭkām wa Taṣarrufāt al-Qāḍīwa'l-Imām (The Criterion for Distinguishing Legal Opinions from Judicial Rulings and the Administrative Acts of Judges and the Ruler [hereafter, “the Criterion”]) by Shihāb al-Dīn Ahmad b. Idrīs al-Qarāfā. This work is neither of theoretical jurisprudence nor of substantive law, but exists at the intersection of both. The Criterion aims to reconcile the idea of divinely revealed law with the fact that the practical norms of Islamic law can be applied only through the actions of particular human institutions.

Kontribusi Pemikiran Hasbi Ash-Shiddieqy dalam Bidang Fikih

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Aan Sufian
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Islamic Schools ◽  
The People ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
Current Context

Hasbi Ash-Shiddieqy (1904-1975) argued, Muslims should be able to distinguish between the Shari’ah which directly from Allah SWT, and fiqh, which is the interpretation of the Shari’a by the mujtahid scholars. So far, there is an impression that Muslims in Indonesia tend to regard fiqh as a Shari’a jurisprudence that should be applied absolutely. As a result, the books of fiqh regarded as a source of religious law, although the Islamic legal opinions of the school sometimes are—to some how—incompatible with the current context. Hasbi saw the need to do ijtihad (Islamic exertion) in favoring the benefit for the people in response to the flow of modernization because Islamic law can basically meet public needs and the needs of mankind. Hasbi offered muqaranah (comparative) method which applied not among the Islamic schools, but also between schools and modern legislation. Hasbi offered idea ijtihad jama’i (ijtihad collectively) by engaging and involving various Muslim scientists so that decisions made are closer to the truth and a much more in line with the demands of the situation and welfare of the community. Since 1940, Hasbi offered the need for having Indonesian fiqh to be a pillar for the development of the Indonesian law. Through ijtihad collectively, according to Hasbi, Indonesian Muslims could formulate and have fiqh according to the personality of the Indonesian nation

The Old Story: Sovereign Nation-States and Myths of National Identity

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Nadeau
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Catholic Churches

When members of a society coordinate their activities based on a broadly disseminated and reinforced set of dogmatic beliefs in their mythological or religious traditions, anthropologists refer to these beliefs as useful myths. The aim of this chapter is to reveal that the dogmatic beliefs associated with the construct of the sovereign nation-state are useful myths that can no longer be viewed as useful because they are effectively undermining efforts to resolve the environmental crisis. This situation is greatly complicated by the fact that the sovereign nation-state is a normative construct, or a construct that is assumed to be a taken-for-granted and indelible aspect of geopolitical reality. The large problem here is that this normative construct constitutes one of the greatest conceptual barriers to resolving the environment crisis. This brief account of the origins and transformations of the construct of the sovereign nation-state is intended to accomplish four objectives. The first is to demonstrate that the construct of the sovereign nation-state emerged in Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries in a series of narratives that transferred the God-given power and authority of sovereign monarchs to the states governed by these monarchs. The second is to reveal that the narratives about nationalism and national identity that emerged during and after the Protestant Reformation abused the truths of religion in an effort to convince core populations living within the borders of particular nation-states that they were a chosen people possessing superior cultural values and personal qualities. The third is to show that the dogmatic beliefs legitimated and perpetuated by these narratives eventually resulted in the creation of churches of state with sacred symbols, rites, and rituals similar to those in Protestant and Catholic churches. And the fourth objective is to provide a basis for understanding how these dogmatic beliefs eventually became foundational to a system of international government, the United Nations, predicated on the construct of the sovereign nation-state. The history of this construct is much more complex and far more detailed than the brief account in this chapter suggests.

Jihad in a World of Sovereigns: Law, Violence, and Islam in the Bosnia Crisis

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (02) ◽  
pp. 371-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darryl Li
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
International Community ◽  
Innovative Approach ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Nonstate Actors ◽  
Archival Research

This article argues that jihads waged in recent decades by “foreign fighter” volunteers invoking a sense of global Islamic solidarity can be usefully understood as attempts to enact an alternative to the interventions of the “International Community.” Drawing from ethnographic and archival research on Arab volunteers who joined the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia‐Herzegovina, this article highlights the challenges and dilemmas facing such jihad fighters as they maneuvered at the edges of diverse legal orders, including international and Islamic law. Jihad fighters appealed to a divine authority above the global nation‐state order while at the same time rooting themselves in that order through affiliation with the sovereign and avowedly secular nation‐state of Bosnia‐Herzegovina. This article demonstrates an innovative approach to law, violence, and Islam that critically situates states and nonstate actors in relation to one another in transnational perspective.

Damages in Islamic Law: Maghribī Muftīs and the Built Environment (9th-15th Centuries C.E.)

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akel Kahera ◽  
Omar Benmira
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Legal Opinions

AbstractThe Mālikī jurists of the Maghrib, or Islamic West, applied the ḥadīth, “no harm shall be inflicted [on anyone] or reciprocated [against anyone]” (lā ḍarar wa-lā ḍirār fī-l-Islām ). This axiom called for the exercise of the muftī's independent reasoning (ijtihād) in matters that were not explicitly clear from the text (naṣṣ) of the Qurʾāan or sunnah. Mālikī jurists used this axiom, which was open to various interpretations, as a basis for rendering legal opinions (fatāwā) in domestic conflicts arising from infractions relating to the socio-spatial world.

The Local Spaces of Statebuilding: The Case of Albania (1920–1939)

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (02) ◽  
pp. 287-310
Author(s):  
Nathalie Clayer
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
State Building ◽  
School Buildings ◽  
Nation State ◽  
State Appropriation ◽  
Local Space ◽  
Space State ◽  
A Site ◽  
Role Of Religion

Abstract Drawing on studies that envisage the local as a site where nation-state building and the affirmation of sovereignty are produced rather than simply reproduced, this article proposes to shift the focus to the local level. By exploring the case of school policies in interwar Albania, at the very heart of the assertion of the new state’s sovereignty, it studies the control of local space as the locus of these processes. More specifically, it focuses on the power relations surrounding the role of religion in school space, state appropriation of school buildings structuring religious spaces, and the effect of the inscription of actors involved in these negotiations—be they agents of these policies or not—into social spaces.

The Criterion for Distinguishing Legal Opinions from Judicial Rulings and the Administrative Acts of Judges and Rulers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Idris al-Qarafi al-Maliki
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
English Language ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
Subsequent Revision

This book is the first and much-needed English translation of a thirteenth-century text that shaped the development of Islamic law in the late middle ages. Scholars of Islamic law can find few English language translations of foundational Islamic legal texts, particularly from the understudied Mamluk era. This edition addresses this gap, finally making the great Muslim jurist Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi's seminal work available to a wider audience. The book's examination of the distinctions among judicial rulings, which were final and unassailable; legal opinions, which were advisory and not binding; and administrative actions, which were binding but amenable to subsequent revision, remained standard for centuries and are still actively debated today.

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