scholarly journals Freedom, Equality and Justice in Islam

2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 180-183
Author(s):  
Ali Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Conclusive Evidence ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Law System ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Scant Attention

Modern Muslim thinkers who try to locate and construct constitutional tenets based on the Islamic tradition face various difficulties, for they have to address a segment of an audience that expects an exposition comparable to the West's in terms of terminologies, institutions, and remedies, as well as to draw from the best practices of Islamic history and modern Muslim societies. It is always fustrating to learn that Islam's constitutional history, despite its richness in individual constitutional tenets, loses some of its utility in modern Muslim societies due to systemic changes caused by glob­ alization and pervasive international institutions, both of which have had far-reaching consequences on domestic sociopolitical settings. Given the contemporary nation-state's overarching authority, one known guarantee of the people's social, legal, or political rights is a con ­stitutional framework under a credible rule of law system. Mohammad Hashim Kamali's Freedom, Equality and Justice in Islam identifies the three themes in the title of his book as the fundamental bases upon which all other constitutional guarantees of human rights depend. The book is divided into three chapters, each dedicated to one of the main themes. The first chapter, which discusses freedom, presents a con­ceptual analysis of the term and how it is expressed in Islam's theological and sociopolitical contexts. However, unlike various guarantees provided for realizing other values, such as justice (discussed in chapter 3), there is little discussion of such practical guarantees for personal liberty and free­dom. The author acknowledges that Muslims have given scant attention to constitutional guarantees of freedom, citing the prevalence of despotic gov­ernments throughout much of Islamic history. Nevertheless, the only way he offers out of this situation is to observe that Muslims should change the language of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) to reflect the challenging times confronting the ummah. This may not be surprising, given the identified problems, as mentioned above, that have to be faced squarely. The second chapter, which analyzes equality, reviews authoritative Islamic sources and argues that although there is conclusive evidence that Islam envisages equality in basic rights and duties among all Muslims, the evidence is somewhat inconclusive on whether all members of the human race enjoy such equality. This inconclusiveness is due to sources that leave room for different interpretations and to prevailing circum­stances during the formative period of Islamic law. Kamali pays particu­lar attention to the duties and rights of women and non-Muslims, for there are different opinions on women's political and family-law rights and on equal opportunity for non-Muslims. He states that even if differential treatments of the two categories are maintained in certain circumstances, such differences do not negate equality, because Islam's positive equality ...

scholarly journals The Discourse and Practice of Islamic Family Law in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 5201-5212
Author(s):  
Nurrohman Syarif
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Court System ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Law System ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Changing Times ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Civil Law System ◽  
Religious Courts

Family law is the most powerful law practiced in Islamic history, but this does not mean that it avoids the demands of changing times. Today, there are no less than thirteen problems related to family law that have arisen in the Muslim world. This problem arises not only because of demands for changing times, but also because of efforts to unify, codify and legislate Islamic law in a number of Muslim countries. This problem requires not only solutions but also reforms. This study aims to examine the model of understanding, practicing, reforming and transforming Islamic law in Indonesia and its impact on the position of standard classical fiqh books and the independence of judges in the Religious Courts. This research is a non-doctrinal normative qualitative research type. This study found a variety of models in the exploration, practice and reform of family law in Indonesia. The impact of the reform and transformation of family law in Indonesia is that classical fiqh books are no longer used as the main reference and the Religious Court System is closer to the civil law system. However, the reform and transformation of family law in Indonesia did not reduce the independence of religious judges in exploring and discovering more contextual Islamic law.

scholarly journals An Introduction to Islam

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-420
Author(s):  
Yasien Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Western Scholar ◽  
Western Hegemony ◽  
Muslim Scholars

David Waines, Islamic lecturer at Lancaster University, divides AnIntroduction to Islam into three parts. Part 1 deals with the Qur'an and theSunnah in the formative period, and part 2 is devoted to Islamic teachingsand practices, including separate chapters on Islamic law, theology, Sufism,and Shi'ism. The connecting thread in these first two parts is the ways inwhich Muslim scholars have explored "revelation and the experience oftheir Prophet, Muhammad" (p. 3). Part 3 treats Islam in the modern world,recounting the period over the last two centuries during which Muslimshave been challenged by western hegemony and have sought to establish amodem sense of Islamic identity.This is a comprehensive, wide-ranging, and up-to-date treatment ofIslamic history and culture. It is by no means the only recent introductionon Islam by a western scholar: Victor Danner's The Islamic Tradition: AnIntroduction (1988) deals with the Islamic intellectual and spiritual traditionwithin the context of other religious traditions. Frederick M. Dermy'sAn Introduction to Islam (1985) offers a comprehensive, simple account ofIslam, and Annemarie Schinunels' Islam: An Introduction is a concise and ...

The Socio-economic Aspects of hijra

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 161-178
Author(s):  
Latife Reda
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Economic Hardship ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Economic Deprivation ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Islamic Society

The paper highlights the socio-economic aspects of the concept of hijra or migration in the Islamic tradition. The paper argues that the conception of migration in the Islamic tradition has been shaped by not only religious and ethical values, but also social and economic motivations and consequences ever since the first migrations to Abyssinia and Medina. The paper addresses the notion and practice of hijra in Islamic history by highlighting its ethical and religious value as well as its nature and evolution into a socio-economic activity motivated by different forms of oppression, including social and political oppression as well as economic deprivation. The study draws on the history of Islam and the Islamic society, the sources of Islamic law and doctrines, and the thought of scholars in relation to the changes in approaches to migration, and the conceptualization of hijra as an activity motivated by oppression and economic hardship.

scholarly journals Qurʾanic Ethics and Islamic Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaled Abou El Fadl
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Law And Ethics ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Point Of Departure

The issue of Islamic law and morality has for the most part received scant attention in the modern age. This essay contributes to the exploration of possible ways of understanding the relationship of ethics to Shariʿah and Islamic law. The author’s objective in this essay is largely normative. While he makes every effort to root his arguments in the fabric of the Islamic tradition, this essay is not descriptive, but aspirational in the sense that he seeks to persuade readers of the desirability of specific understandings of the meaning of Shariʿah and the relationship between Islamic law and ethics. As a point of departure, the author accepts that the Qurʾan and the laws of God are binding, and that an Islamic theory has to be expressed within the framework of Islamic principles. He maintains that the dynamism and vitality of Islamic law must be preserved in the contemporary age, and that such a result is not possible without maintaining the liberty and innovative capacities of the individual.

Including Islam

2019 ◽  
pp. 410-428
Author(s):  
Stefan Leder
Keyword(s):  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Global Theory ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Role Of Religion

Weber’s concept of Islam as a cultural configuration including religion, society, and political order was conceived against the backdrop of Europe’s supposed uniqueness and exemplary path to modernity. Yet his ambition of advancing transcultural understanding and exploring a plurality of developmental histories offers inspiration to this day also for the Islamic perspective. Repositioning his ideas about warrior Islam, Islamic beliefs, Islamic law, and patrimonialism in the context of contemporary postcolonial, postmodern, and global theory reveals details, correlations, and perspectives that Weber at the time ignored or omitted. Complementing theory with up-to-date historical research on the Middle East provides further corrections. A critical appraisal of Weber’s approach and the discussions it triggered allows recognition of the dynamics of Islamic history, such as the role of religion and religious authority in the evolution of state–society relations. It also assists in understanding Islamic features of modernity, including fundamentalism and the role of tradition, that inform the tension between moral values and politics. Going beyond the historical limitation of Weber’s assessment of prevalent features of Islam, the vitality of Islamic tradition and its particular pathway to modernity are recognizable in terms corresponding with the intention of Weber’s transcultural approach and its contemporary reinterpretations.

Gendering Emotions: Ṭarab, Women and Musical Performance in Three Biographical Narratives from ‘The Book of Songs’

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Karen Moukheiber
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Slave Women ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Literary Biographies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Book Of Songs

Musical performance was a distinctive feature of urban culture in the formative period of Islamic history. At the court of the Abbasid caliphs, and in the residences of the ruling elite, men and women singers performed to predominantly male audiences. The success of a performer was linked to his or her ability to elicit ṭarab, namely a spectrum of emotions and affects, in their audiences. Ṭarab was criticized by religious scholars due, in part, to the controversial performances at court of slave women singers depicted as using music to induce passion in men, diverting them from normative ethical social conduct. This critique, in turn, shaped the ethical boundaries of musical performances and affective responses to them. Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Aghānī (‘The Book of Songs’) compiles literary biographies of prominent male and female singers from the formative period of Islamic history. It offers rich descriptions of musical performances as well as ensuing manifestations of ṭarab in audiences, revealing at times the polemics with which they were associated. Investigating three biographical narratives from Kitāb al-Aghānī, this paper seeks to answer the following question: How did emotions, gender and status shape on the one hand the musical performances of women singers and on the other their audiences’ emotional responses, holistically referred to as ṭarab. Through this question, this paper seeks to nuance and complicate our understanding of the constraints and opportunities that shaped slave and free women's musical performances, as well as men's performances, at the Abbasid court.

An Introduction to Islam

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 131-133
Author(s):  
Mohammed Rustom
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Civil Strife ◽  
Ibn Rushd ◽  
The Status ◽  
Interesting Discussion

An Introduction to Islam by David Waines consists of three parts:“Foundations,” “Islamic Teaching and Practice,” and “Islam in the ModernWorld.” The author begins by characteristically painting the picture of pre-Islamic pagan Arabia on the eve of Islam’s advent. He discusses the role andsignificance the pre-Islamic Arabs accorded their pantheon of deities, as wellas the (largely inherited) moral codes that governed their conduct in tribalsociety. Waines neatly ties this into what follows, where he discusses thebirth of Prophet Muhammad, the event of the Qur’an’s revelation, and theopposition he encountered from his fellow tribesmen in Makkah. This is followedby an analysis of the Qur’an’s significance, its conception of divinity,and the content and importance of the Hadith as a source of guidance forMuslims. The section is rounded off with examinations of such topics as the first period of civil strife (fitnah) after the Prophet’s death and the interestingbody of literature devoted to Muslim-Christian polemics in earlymedieval Islam.The transition from the first part of the book to the second part is ratherfluid, for the second part is essentially an elaboration of the themes discussedin the first. With remarkable ease and accuracy, the author elucidatesthe historical development and main features of Islamic law in both its theoryand practice. Returning to his earlier discussion on the Hadith, here hebriefly outlines how its corpus came to be collected. Readers unfamiliar withthe main theological controversies that confronted Islam in its formativeyears (e.g., the problem of free will and the status of the grave sinner) willfind the section devoted to Islamic theology fairly useful.Waines goes on to explain some of the principle Mu`tazilite andAsh`arite doctrines, and outlines some of the ideas of Neoplatonic Islamicphilosophy, albeit through the lenses of al-Ghazali’s famous refutation.Surprisingly, the author does not address any of the major developments inIslamic philosophy post-Ibn Rushd, such as the important work of theIshraqi (Illuminationist) school (incidentally, the founder of this school,Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, was a contemporary of Ibn Rushd). The last twochapters are devoted to Sufism and Shi`ism, respectively. Although Wainesdoes misrepresent Ibn al-`Arabi’s metaphysics of Being by calling it a “system”(pp. 153 and 192), on the whole he presents the Islamic mystical traditionin a refreshing and informed manner. His section on Shi`ism is splendid.It is written with considerable care, and he effectively isolates the mainthemes characteristic of Twelver Shi`ite thought and practice.In the third and longest part of this work, Waines incorporates IbnBattutah’s travel accounts into the book’s narrative. This works very well, asit gives readers a sense of the diverse and rich cultural patterns that wereintricately woven into the fabric of fourteenth-century Islamic civilization.After reading through the section, this present reviewer could not help butmarvel at how the observations of a fourteenth-century traveler and legaljudge from Tangiers could so effectively contribute to a twenty-first centuryintroductory textbook on Islam. Additionally, Waines takes readers throughsome of the essential features of the three important “gunpowder” Muslimdynasties, devotes an interesting discussion to the role played by the mosquein a Muslim’s daily life, and outlines some of its different architectural andartistic expressions throughout Islamic history ...

Observation of Good Faith Principle in Contract Negotiations: A Comparative Study with Emphasis on International Instruments

2013 ◽  
Vol 03 (09) ◽  
pp. 56-61
Author(s):  
Ebrahim Shoarian Sattari
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
German Law ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Fair Dealing ◽  
Contract Negotiations ◽  
Law System ◽  
American Law ◽  
Special Stand ◽  
International Instruments

Good Faith is one of the important principles in contract law. This principle is inherited from Roman law and it has been mostly developed in civil law system. Observation of Good faith and Fair dealing in French and German law and many other countries is considered as legal obligation. Good faith, also, is of special stand In Chinese law of contract. Since Good faith is considered as important and valuable, it has been recognized in Common Law System and adopted in English and American law. Islamic law also contains numerous examples of obligations that are based on Good Faith principle. Nowadays, good faith principle has been incorporated in important international instruments such as CISG, UPICC, PECL, and DCFR and its scope has been developed. If good faith principle was being considered in fulfilling of contracts, today it also is considered as important in pre-contractual and conclusion stages of contracts. The aforementioned documents contain regulations for observing good faith in preliminary negotiations, conclusion of contract, fulfilling of contract and the interpretation thereto. The present Article is attempted to show that Good faith is important in all stages including preliminary negotiation and it should be incorporated in domestic legislations. Remedy for breach of this duty in the pre-contractual sphere should be limited only to compensation for damages.

scholarly journals KONTRIBUSI POSITIF ORIENTALISME: KAJIAN ATAS REINHART DOZY (1820-1883 M)

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Ghulam Falach
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Library Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Islamic Civilization

The main focus of Orientalist thought is nothing but to reconstruct and influence Islamic civilization. Their enthusiasm to activate orientalism is increasingly challenged by the presence of Islam as a religion that has followers of most of the world's population. One of the actions of orientalism towards the Islamic world is to start a research movement on the Qur'an and al-Hadith which are the basis of the law and guidelines of Muslims. Not far from the critics of the Qur'an and al-Hadith, they also deconstructed aspects of the development of science, Islamic law, and even the originality of Islamic history. Some famous orientalism figures, one of them is Reinhart Dozy, a famous orientelism from the Netherlands with the concept of literacy in the history of Islamic civilization in Spain. Even though he received a lot of criticism and appreciation from both orientalists and Muslim thinkers, his literary work has had a great influence on Islamic civilization. The discussion steps of this study are entirely carried out using qualitative research that is library research. To be more useful and function properly, this paper is equipped with an explanation using the method of description, interpretation and analysis of data in each discussion. This is done, none other than to focus the discussion to produce a consistent and comprehensive understanding.

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