Table of Contents:
  • Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Contents; A Note on Quotations; Introduction; An object of polemic with contrasting uses; The Sharia in a few words; 1. A Concept and Its Contexts; The Sharia in language games; Beyond dogmatic discourse, observation of practice; The academic conception of Sharia; A term with many connotations; 2. Exploring the Sources of the Divine Law: The Quran; The Quran and its Messenger; The Quranic text: Mystical revelation or law?; Compilation and transmission of the Quran; Meaning and interpretation of the Quran; Contemporary uses of the Quran.
  • 3. The Sources of the Divine Norm: Prophetic TraditionEstablishing a community hierarchy and a corpus of norms; The science of hadith; The place of Tradition in doctrine and the science of its foundations; The Sunna as guarantee of authenticity and authority; Contemporary legal uses of the Sunna; 4. Access to Sharia: Consensus and Analogical Reasoning; The development of doctrinal schools; Consensus; Reasoning and analogy; Jurisconsults; The Sunni doctrinal schools; Shi'ite doctrine; The institution of the fatwa and doctrinal consultation; The contemporary relevance of doctrinal reasoning.
  • 5. A Survey of DoctrineThe classification of acts, hierarchy of sources, and capacity; Pillars of the faith and acts of ritual devotion; Family relations; Property and contractual relations; Offences against life, the body, and property; 6. Practices and Institutions of Justice; The concept of justice in Islam; The institutions of justice; The judge between theory and practice; The age of reforms and the coming of the nation-state; 7. The Invention of Islamic Law; An administrative and academic creation; The imposition of a positivist model; A new way of conceiving Sharia.
  • 8. Sharia in Contemporary Legal SystemsArab experiences under the influence of Napoleonic law; Personal status law; Criminal law and civil law; Concerning Islamic banks; Judges and Sharia; 9. The Sharia: Political Uses and Constitutional Renderings; Implosion, eclipse, return to the political scene; Indispensable reference, diversified content; Legal references to Islam and devolution of powers in religious subjects; The Sharia as ideology; 10. Sharia in Countries Where Islam is in a Minority; Openings in private international law.
  • Personal status and Islamic norm in a secularized public spaceWhen Islam becomes Western; Islamic doctrine in minority situations; Virtuous abstraction, disciplinary order, political slogans; Conclusion; Notes; Glossary; Index.