Introduction

Fordham International Law Journal\u27s special issue on Islamic law includes articles that present a broad variety of themes, from the historical to the contemporary, from the philosophical to the empirical, and from the theoretical to the practical. In light of the generally poor understanding of Islamic law among American lawyers, one can only hope that a publication such as this succeeds in generating greater intellectual curiosity about Islamic law among readers of American law journals. The authors hope that this collection of Articles will lead to renewed interest in Islamic law and theology as intellectually gratifying topics of inquiry in themselves, in addition to any relevance they may or may not have for transient political circumstances. A cardinal virtue of the lawyer is the ability to extract herself from her own circumstances and view a problem from the perspective of another party, oftentimes an adversary. Hopefully, this special issue will help generate further understanding by affording non-experts in Islamic law an opportunity to better comprehend some of the issues engaging Muslim jurists and theologians in this era

Seeking an Islamic Reflective Equilibrium: A Response to Abdullahi A. An-Na\u27im’s Complementary, Not Competing, Claims of Law and Religion: An Islamic Perspective

Professor \u27Abdallahi Na\u27im argues that there can be no conflict between religion and the state because religion and politics are part of different normative orders, and thus it is not conceivable that a conflict can arise between them. I argue that Na\u27im\u27s solution to the problematic relationship of religion to state shares the same conceptual terrain as separationism in American constitutional law, a position which has grown increasingly untenable as a result of the increasing religious pluralism in the United States and the expansion of the government into areas of life in a manner that would have been inconceivable even one hundred years ago. More importantly, revealed religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam provide their adherents with their own conceptions of justice that sometimes do conflict with the results of secular lawmaking. I argue that instead of seeking a further separation of religion from the state, on the grounds that the former is irrelevant to the latter, it would be more useful to judge both the claims of religion and the claims of the state from the perspective of the normative concerns of justice. From this perspective, religion can serve as an important source of normative values that can criticize unjust political outcomes. At the same time, however, religion cannot claim for itself immunity from the claims of justice. Instead, a reflective equilibrium between the claims of religion and the claims of the state should be the goal. I conclude with a couple of examples from historical Islamic law illustrating both the resources that Islamic law provides in furthering a more just legal system, and interpretations of historical Islamic doctrines in a fashion that is consistent with the kind of reflective equilibrium that should be the goal of legal reflection in a politically liberal state

Religious Law, Family Law and Arbitration: Shari\u27a and Halakha in America

The possibility that Muslims might use private arbitration as a forum in which their family law disputes could be settled according to the principles of Islamic law has generated substantial controversy, with one liberal democracy, Canada, even taking affirmative steps to insure that religious-based arbitration of family law disputes are denied legal recognition. This paper argues that such moves are ill-considered. From the perspective of political liberalism, the arbitration of family law disputes within a framework of religious law, provided that the arbitration is subject to review by a public court for conformity with public policy, is an ideal tool for deepening and broadening liberal political values such as religious freedom and gender equality within an overall recognition of the legitimacy of a limited amount of pluralism in family life

Palaeoenvironmental signatures revealed from rare earth element (REE) compositions of vertebrate microremains of the Vesiku Bone Bed (Homerian, Wenlock), Saaremaa Island, Estonia

The Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences is an open access journal and applies the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY to all its papers (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The attached file is the published version of the article

Some results for the generalized Beta function using N- fractional calculus

In this paper ,some results for the generalized Beta function are derived by using N-fractional calculus of the logarithm function . Also, some results associated with the usual Beta function are obtained as special cases of the main results

Isolation and antibiotic susceptibility of Salmonella and Shigella strains isolated from children in Gaza, Palestine from 1999 to 2006

Background and Aim:  Diarrhea and acute gastroenteritis are among the leading causes of illnesses and death in infants and children throughout the world, especially in developing countries, Globally, Salmonella and Shigella remain the major contributors to acute enteric infections and diarrhea. Methods:  In the present study, Shigella‐ and Salmonella‐related diarrhea was studied among 3570 children in Gaza, Palestine from January 1999 to September 2006 to determine the prevalence and the antimicrobial susceptibility of the isolates. Results:  The frequency of isolation was 1.8% (65/3570) for Salmonella spp. and 0.8% (28/3570) for Shigella spp. Shigella flexneri (16/28) was the most frequently isolated Shigella species. Most of the Shigella isolates were resistant to trimethoprim‐sulfamethoxazole (89%), ampicillin (79%) and chloramphenicol (46%) and most of the Salmonella isolates showed resistance

Pengaruh Jarak Lapis Geogrid Teratas Dan Kedalaman Pondasi Terhadap Daya Dukung Tanah Pasir Dengan Kepadatan Rc = 70% Pada Pondasi Menerus Dengan Perkuatan Geogrid Tipe Biaksial

Penelitian ini dilakukan pada tanah pasir RC 70%. Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk mengetahui pengaruh – pengaruh pondasi menerus yang diletakkan pada tanah pasir dengan perkuatan geogrid tipe biaksial dengan rasio kedalaman pondasi dan jarak lapis geogrid teratas terhadap daya dukung tanah pasir. Yang dimana hasil dari pondasi menerus dengan perkuatan akan dibandingkan dengan pondasi tanpa perkuatan. Parameter yang diamati pada penelitian ini adalah pengaruh kedalaman pondasi (d) dan pengaruh efek letak lapisan geogrid teratas (u) terhadap daya dukung ultimit dan penurunan pada pondasi menerus. Uji model yang dilakukan di laboratorium mengunakan 1 lapis perkuatan geogrid dengan lebar pondasi 8 cm. Rasio yang digunakan adalah variasi rasio d/B sebesar 0; 0,5; 1 dan variasi rasio u/B sebesar 0,25; 0,5; 0,75. didapatkan hasil bahwa nilai daya dukung ultimit tertinggi pada rasio d/B tertinggi akan tetatpi nilai BCIu tertinggi pada d/B=0. Sementara untuk variasi u/B didapatkan nilai optimum pada penelitian ini adalah pada u/B=0,5, karena pada u/B=0,5 mengalami penurunan nilai BCIu