Islam And The Limits Of The State

This book examines the complex relationships between the state state implementation of Shariʿa and diverse lived realities of everyday Islam in contemporary Aceh, Indonesia.

This book deals with an Ayyūbid-Mamlūk Egyptian jurist's attempt to come to terms with the potential conflict between power, represented in the state, and authority, represented in the schools of law, particularly where one school enjoys a privileged status with the state. It deals with the history of the relationship between the schools of law, particularly in Mamlūk Egypt, in the context of the running history of Islamic law from the formative period during which ijtihād was the dominant hegemony, into the post-formative period during which taqlīd came to dominate. It also deals with the internal structure and operation of the madhhab, as the sole repository of legal authority. Finally, the book includes a discussion of the limits of law and the legal process, the former imposing limits on the legal jurisdiction of the jurists and the schools, the latter imposing limits on the executive authority of the state.

Wael B. Hallaq boldly argues that the "Islamic state," judged by any standard definition of what the modern state represents, is both impossible and inherently self-contradictory. Comparing the legal, political, moral, and constitutional histories of premodern Islam and Euro-America, he finds the adoption and practice of the modern state to be highly problematic for modern Muslims. He also critiques more expansively modernity's moral predicament, which renders impossible any project resting solely on ethical foundations. The modern state not only suffers from serious legal, political, and constitutional issues, Hallaq argues, but also, by its very nature, fashions a subject inconsistent with what it means to be, or to live as, a Muslim. By Islamic standards, the state's technologies of the self are severely lacking in moral substance, and today's Islamic state, as Hallaq shows, has done little to advance an acceptable form of genuine Shari'a governance. The Islamists' constitutional battles in Egypt and Pakistan, the Islamic legal and political failures of the Iranian Revolution, and similar disappointments underscore this fact. Nevertheless, the state remains the favored template of the Islamists and the ulama (Muslim clergymen). Providing Muslims with a path toward realizing the good life, Hallaq turns to the rich moral resources of Islamic history. Along the way, he proves political and other "crises of Islam" are not unique to the Islamic world nor to the Muslim religion. These crises are integral to the modern condition of both East and West, and by acknowledging these parallels, Muslims can engage more productively with their Western counterparts.

In The Politics of Islamic Law, Iza Hussin compares India, Malaya, and Egypt during the British colonial period in order to trace the making and transformation of the contemporary category of ‘Islamic law.’ She demonstrates that not only is Islamic law not the shari’ah, its present institutional forms, substantive content, symbolic vocabulary, and relationship to state and society—in short, its politics—are built upon foundations laid during the colonial encounter. Drawing on extensive archival work in English, Arabic, and Malay—from court records to colonial and local papers to private letters and visual material—Hussin offers a view of politics in the colonial period as an iterative series of negotiations between local and colonial powers in multiple locations. She shows how this resulted in a paradox, centralizing Islamic law at the same time that it limited its reach to family and ritual matters, and produced a transformation in the Muslim state, providing the frame within which Islam is articulated today, setting the agenda for ongoing legislation and policy, and defining the limits of change. Combining a genealogy of law with a political analysis of its institutional dynamics, this book offers an up-close look at the ways in which global transformations are realized at the local level.

Experts analyze the effect of cultural interests on the foreign policy of states in the Caspian region, including Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan.

This book analyzes the political economy of the MENA region with a focus on pre-revolutionary political and economic conditions, the 2011 revolution itself, and post-revolutionary political processes in Tunisia. The author places particular emphasis on the political role of women, Islam, and democracy after the revolution, and argues that post-Revolution Tunisia serves as an ideal model for the MENA region to follow. This volume will interest scholars, students, researchers, and everyone who is interested in the politics of MENA and political economy.

This book examines contemporary developments in Russian politics, how they impact on Russia's Muslim communities, how these communities are helping to shape the Russian state, and what insights this provides to the nature and identity of the Russian state both in its inward and outward projection.

Analyzes Muslim countries' contemporary problems, particularly violence, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment, comparing their historical levels of development with Western Europe.