Sharia Incorporated: A Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past and Present (Amsterdam University Press - Leiden University Press Academic)

Description

The aim of Sharia Incorporated is to provide unbiased and contextual information about a topic that has of late been hijacked by politics in the Muslim world as well as in the West. Sharia Incorporated, written by laudable international scholars, is an ambitious study of the incorporation of Islamic law traditions into national legal systems. The book also explores the sensitive topic of 'Western' human rights and other rule of law standards in a Muslim world. It provides an in-depth analysis of the role of sharia in the historical and legal formation of twelve representative Muslim states, with a unique comparison of key issues raised by the 'Islamic awakening' of recent decades. In the preface Jan Michiel Otto goes to the heart of the prevailing environment in which Western discourses tend to oversimplify the substance and effect of Islam and sharia. "Sharia incorporated is essential reading for anyone who seeks a better informed, more nuanced picture of law in Muslim majority countries than we normally get. Without being starry-eyed, the country studies show the complexity of reconciling law with custom, and religious with secular laws. Sometimes violent Puritanism clashes with older forms of religious discourse, market economies affect older ways of life, and modern states struggle to make traditional and modern institutions cohere. If nothing else, this book offers a necessary antidote to glib thinking and ignorant prejudice" Ian Buruma Watch a clarification on the book by Jan Michiel Otto" here.