Islamic Law, Women’s Rights, and Popular Legal Consciousness in Malaysia

Drawing on original survey research, this study examines how lay Muslims in Malaysia understand foundational concepts in Islamic law. The survey finds a substantial disjuncture between popular legal consciousness and core epistemological commitments in Islamic legal theory. In its classic form, Islamic legal theory was marked by its commitment to pluralism and the centrality of human agency in Islamic jurisprudence. Yet in contemporary Malaysia, lay Muslims tend to understand Islamic law as being purely divine, with a single \u27correct\u27 answer to any given question. The practical implications of these findings are demonstrated through examples of efforts by women’s rights activists to reform family law provisions in Malaysia. The examples illustrate how popular misconceptions of Islamic law hinder the efforts of those working to reform family law codes while strengthening the hand of conservative actors wishing to maintain the status quo

Conflict and Cooperation between the State and Religious Institutions in Contemporary Egypt

Al-Azhar, traditionally Egypt’s most respected and influential center for Islamic study, adopted an increasingly bold platform opposing Egyptian government policy throughout the mid-1990s. Al-Azhar defied government policy on a variety of sensitive issues, including population control, the practice of clitoridectomy, and censorship rights. Moreover, al-Azhar directly challenged the government in high-profile forums such as the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo in September of 1994. This open opposition was remarkable in light of the tremendous capacity that the Egyptian government has shown in the past to manipulate and control al-Azhar. Over the past century, and particularly since the 1952 Free Oficers’ coup, the Egyptian government virtually incorporated al-Azhar as an arm of the state through purges and control over Azhar finances, and by gaining the power to appoint al-Azhar’s key leadership. Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Husni Mubarak all benefited from this dominance over al-Azhar by securing fatwas legitimating their policies. Given this overwhelming leverage, what can explain al-Azhar’s increased opposition to the government throughout the mid-1990s

Law versus the State: The Judicialization of Politics in Egypt

This study seeks to explain the paradoxical expansion of constitutional power in Egypt over the past two decades, despite that country’s authoritarian political system. I find that the Egyptian regime established an independent constitutional court, capable of providing institutional guarantees on the security of property rights, in order to attract desperately needed private investment after the failure of its socialist-oriented development strategy.The court continued to expand its authority, fundamentally transforming the mode of interaction between state and society by supporting regime efforts to liberalize the economy while simultaneously providing new avenues for opposition activists and human rights groups to challenge the state. The Egyptian case challenges some of our basic assumptions about the conditions under which we are likely to see a judicialization of politics, and it invites scholars to explore the dynamics of judicial politics in other authoritarian political systems

Liberal Rights versus Islamic Law? The Construction of a Binary in Malaysian Politics

Why are liberal rights and Islamic law understood in binary and exclusivist terms at some moments, but not others? In this study, I trace when, why, and how an Islamic law versus liberal rights binary emerged in Malaysian political discourse and popular legal consciousness. I find that Malaysian legal institutions were hardwired to produce vexing legal questions, which competing groups of activists transformed into compelling narratives of injustice. By tracing the development of this spectacle in the courtroom and beyond, I show how the dueling binaries of liberal rights versus Islamic law, individual rights versus collective rights, and secularism versus religion were contingent on institutional design and political agency, rather than irreconcilable tensions between liberal rights and the Islamic legal tradition in some intrinsic sense. More broadly, the research contributes to our understanding of how popular legal consciousness is shaped by legal mobilization and countermobilization beyond the court of law

Islamic Law, Women’s Rights, and Popular Legal Consciousness in Malaysia (SWP 12)

Drawing on original survey research, this study examines how lay Muslims in Malaysia understand foundational concepts in Islamic law. The survey finds a substantial disjuncture between popular legal consciousness and core epistemological commitments in Islamic legal theory. In its classic form, Islamic legal theory was marked by its commitment to pluralism and the centrality of human agency in Islamic jurisprudence. Yet in contemporary Malaysia, lay Muslims tend to understand Islamic law as being singular, fixed, and purely divine in nature, with a single ‘correct’ answer to any given question. The practical implications of these findings are demonstrated through examples of efforts by women’s-rights activists to reform family law provisions in Malaysia. The examples illustrate how popular misunderstandings of Islamic legal theory hinder the efforts of those working to reform family law codes while strengthening the hand of conservative actors wishing to maintain the status quo.&nbsp

Law and Courts in Authoritarian Regimes

"Once regarded as mere pawns of their regimes, courts in authoraitarian states are now the subject of considerable attention within the field of comparative judicial politics.  New research examines the ways in which law and courts are deployed as instruments of governance, how they structure state-society contention, and the circumstances in which courts are transformed into sites of active resistance.  This new body of research constitutes an emergent field of inquiry, while simultaneously contributing to a number of related research agendas, including authoritarian durability and regime transition, human rights, transitional justice, law and development, and rule-of-law promotion.  Moreover, this research offers important insights into the erosion of rights and liberties in "consolidated democracies.

The Islamist Trend in Egyptian Law

The past four decades have witnessed profound transformations in the Egyptian legal system and in the Egyptian legal profession. Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution now enshrines Islamic jurisprudence as the principle source of law, thus establishing an important symbolic marker at the heart of the state and opening avenues for Islamist activists to press litigation campaigns in the courts. Additionally, the Islamist trend gained prominence within the legal profession, a development that is particularly striking given the long and illustrious history of the Lawyer’s Syndicate as a bastion of liberalism. Despite these significant shifts, however, Islamist litigation has achieved only limited legal victories. This article traces the political and socio-economic variables that underlie the Islamist trend in Egyptian law, and examines the impact of Islamist litigation in the Egyptian courts

Constituting Religion

Constituting Religion examines how activists work to expand or challenge the reach of the shariah court system, and how these legal struggles shape popular understandings of Islam, liberal rights. This title is also available as Open Access

The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt

For nearly three decades, scholars and policymakers have placed considerablestock in judicial reform as a panacea for the political and economic turmoil plagu-ing developing countries. Courts are charged with spurring economic develop-ment, safeguarding human rights, and even facilitating transitions to democracy.How realistic are these expectations, and in what political contexts can judicialreforms deliver their expected benefits? In this book, Tamir Moustafa addressesthese issues through an examination of the politics of the Egyptian SupremeConstitutional Court, the most important experiment in constitutionalism in theArab world. The Egyptian regime established a surprisingly independent constitutional court to address a series of economic and administrative pathologies that lie at theheart of authoritarian political systems. Although the Court helped the regime toinstitutionalize state functions and attract investment, it simultaneously openednew avenues through which rights advocates and opposition parties could chal-lenge the regime. The book examines the dynamics of legal mobilization in thismost unlikely political environment. Standing at the intersection of political science, economics, and comparativelaw, The Struggle for Constitutional Power challenges conventional wisdom andprovides new insights into perennial questions concerning the barriers to institu-tional development, economic growth, and democracy in the developing world