Subjects:

Other Jurisdictions , Islamic Law

Contents:

Part 1

The socio-logic of Islamic legal reasoning: equity and discretion in Islamic law

Islamic case-law and the logic of consequence

Islamic law as common law - power, culture, and the reconfiguration of legal taxonomies

responsibility and compensatory justice in Arab culture and law.

Part 2

In and out of court

from courtroom to courtyard - law and custom in popular legal culture

on the docket - changing conventions in a Muslim court, 1965-1995

local justice - a day in an alternative court

who do you trust? Structuring confidence in Arab law and society.

Part 3

Justice past and present

Islamic concepts of justice and injustice

Muhammad's sociological jurisprudence

private thoughts, public utterances - law, privacy, and the consequences for community

Islam and Islamic culture in the courts of the United States.

One out of five people in the world today lives subject to Islamic law, but stereotypes of rigid doctrine or harsh punishment obscure an understanding of the values and style of reasoning that characterize everyday lslamic adjudication. By considering its larger social and cultural context Islamic law is shown to be a kind of common law system: justice is sought through a careful assessment of persons, more than facts, and justice resides not in equality but in a quest for equivalence.

Through ordinary court proceedings the style of reasoning is seen to be embedded in a set of cultural assumptions, thus rendering the study of Islamic legal proceedings a window on Muslim society generally. Using data ranging from the courts of North Africa to the treatment of Islam in American courts, from a reinterpretation of the Prophet's sociological jurisprudence to the analysis of Islamic concepts of responsibility and trust these essays demonstrate the enduring appeal of Islamic law in the lives of everyday adherents.