The Place of Islamic Law in Modern Arab Legal Systems: A Brief for Researchers and Reference Librarians

In: International journal of legal information: IJLI ; the official journal of the International Association of Law Libraries, Volume 28, Issue 1, p. 117-126

Abstract

Ever since Joseph Schacht, whose book An Introduction to Islamic Law is on the short list of books on Middle East law, said that Islamic law is the epitome of Islamic thought, in other words, you can't understand Islam without understanding Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies and their journals invariably include classical Islamic law in their coverage of the subject with little attention given to modern legislation. This is particularly obvious in the bibliography of periodical literature which disregards the increasing number of studies on the modern law of the Middle East appearing in law journals. Even entries described as positive law, a category recently added to John and Marianne Makdisi's eminently useful compilation on Islamic law, comes no closer to giving a realistic picture of the applicable law. To illustrate what I mean, titles under positive law dealing with insurance, banking, and interest, concentrate on Islamic law's position on these subject-matters at a time when modern legislation in most Arab states has completely discarded that position.