The first eleven essays in this collection treat the application of Islamic law in qadi courts in the Maghrib in the period between 1100 and 1500 CE. Based on preserved legal documents and the expert opinions of Muslim jurists (Muftis), the essays examine family law cases involving legal minority, guardianship, divorce, inheritance, bequests, and endowments. Cumulatively, the cases bear witness to the effectiveness and efficiency of the Islamic judicial system in this period. Contrary to popular perceptions, the cases demonstrate that Muslim jurists placed a high value on reasoned thought and were sensitive to the manner in which law, society, and culture interacted with, and shaped, each other. The final essay shows how the treatment of family endowments by colonial regimes in Algeria and India at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries shaped, or misshaped the modern western scholarly understanding of Islamic law.

The first eleven essays in this collection analyze the application of Islamic law in family law cases in Qadi courts in the Maghrib between 1100 and 1500 CE. Based on preserved legal documents and the expert opinions of Muslim jurists (Muftis), they demonstrate that the jurists placed high value on reasoned thought and were sensitive to the manner in which law, society, and culture interacted. The final essay shows how the treatment of family endowments by colonial regimes in Algeria and India at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries shaped, or misshaped, the modern western scholarly understanding of Islamic law.

Focusing on the Maghrib in the period between 1300 and 1500, in this 2002 book David Powers analyses the application of Islamic law through the role of the mufti. To unravel the sophistication of the law, he considers six cases which took place in the Marinid period on subjects as diverse as paternity, fornication, water rights, family endowments, the slander of the Prophet and disinheritance. The source for these disputes are fatwas issued by the muftis, which the author uses to situate each case in its historical context and to interpret the principles of Islamic law. In so doing he demonstrates that, contrary to popular stereotypes, muftis were in fact dedicated to reasoned argument, and sensitive to the manner in which law, society and culture interacted. The book represents a groundbreaking approach to a complex field. It will be read by students of Islamic law and those interested in traditional Muslim societies.

In Islamic Legal Thought: A Compendium of Muslim Jurists, twenty-three scholars each contribute a chapter containing the biography of a distinguished Muslim jurist and a translated sample of his work. Jurists of the formative, classical and modern periods are represented.

This collective volume deals with the main components in the laws of Islamic societies, past and present: sharia, custom and statute. Covers a wide range of geographical areas, from the Balkans to Yemen, and from Iraq to the Maghrib -- Back cover.

The Reconquista left unprecedentedly large numbers of Muslims living under Christian rule. Since Islamic religious and legal institutions had been developed by scholars who lived under Muslim rule and who assumed this condition as a given, how Muslims should proceed in the absence of such rule became the subject of extensive intellectual investigation. In Islamic Law and the Crisis of the Reconquista, Alan Verskin examines the way in which the Iberian school of Mālikī law developed in response to the political, theological, and practical difficulties posed by the Reconquista. He shows how religious concepts, even those very central to the Islamic religious experience, could be rethought and reinterpreted in order to respond to the changing needs of Muslims.

Dispensing Justice is designed to serve as a sourcebook of Islamic judicial practice and qadi judgments from the rise of Islam to modern times, drawing upon court records and qadi court records, in addition to literary sources. The volume fills a large gap in Islamic legal history. "Dispensing Justice" is designed to serve as a source book of Islamic judicial practice from the rise of Islam to modern times, drawing upon legal documents, qadi court records, archival marerials and literary souces. The volume fills a large ap in our understanding of Islamic legal history. (modified by Powers).

A comprehensive guide to Islamic legal scholarship, this Handbook offers a direct and accessible introduction to Islamic law and the academic debates within the field. Topics include textual sources and authority, institutions, substantive legal areas, Islamic legal philosophy, and Islamic law in the Muslim World and in Muslim minority countries.

The study of Islamic law can be a forbidding prospect for those entering the field for the first time. Wael Hallaq, a leading scholar and practitioner of Islamic law, guides students through the intricacies of the subject in this absorbing introduction. The first half of the book is devoted to a discussion of Islamic law in its pre-modern natural habitat. The second part explains how the law was transformed and ultimately dismantled during the colonial period. In the final chapters, the author charts recent developments and the struggles of the Islamists to negotiate changes which have seen the law emerge as a primarily textual entity focused on fixed punishments and ritual requirements. The book, which includes a chronology, a glossary of key terms, and lists of further reading, will be the first stop for those who wish to understand the fundamentals of Islamic law, its practices and history.

In this pioneering work Siraj Sait and Hilary Lim address Islamic property and land rights, drawing on a range of socio-historical, classical and contemporary resources. They address the significance of Islamic theories of property and Islamic land tenure regimes on the 'webs of tenure' prevalent in the Muslim societies. They consider the possibility of using Islamic legal and human rights systems for the development of inclusive, pro-poor approaches to land rights. They also focus on Muslim women's rights to property and inheritance systems. Engaging with institutions such as the Islamic endowment (waqf) and principles of Islamic microfinance, they test the workability of 'authentic' Islamic proposals. Located in human rights as well as Islamic debates, this study offers a well researched and constructive appraisal of property and land rights in the Muslim world.