Islamic Law: The Sources

The historiography of the early development of Islamic law, the Sharia, is highly contentious both among Muslims and secular historians. In economic field, this takes the form of the growth of an ‘Islamic banking system’, which avoids giving and taking interest on loans, as is forbidden in the Sharia. The more established groups such as the Islamic State does, however, actually often adopt a classical fiqh discourse, perhaps to bolster their image as a ‘serious Islamic’. Any law that provides morality, justice and welfare, is ‘Sharia’ as far as they are concerned. The traditional dual system of a Sharia court and a sultan’s or state court reappeared, only the state courts were not mazalim following Sharia principles, but civil courts practising the new westernized or modernized laws. The traditional Muslim historiography of fiqh does not, however, focus particularly on this ‘practised’ caliphal law, but rather on the development of groups of religious scholars who were particularly concerned with the law.acceptedVersio

Warscheid Ismail. — Droit musulman et société au Sahara prémoderne. La justice islamique dans les oasis du Grand Touat (Algérie) aux XVIIe-XIXesiècles

An ongoing debate in African and Islamic studies has been centered on the role played by Islam, and particularly “normative” Islam, in the remote regions of the Sahara. Some consider that Islamization must have been shallow, a thin cover over practices that reflected local custom, not “Islam proper.” Others point to the great production of religious and legal texts from a wide class of scholars in many of the desert oases and the desert edge, from M’zab in the north to Timbuktu in the south. ..

Rethinking Sudan Studies: A Post-2011 Manifesto

Abstract This essay appraises “Sudan Studies” following the 2011 secession of South Sudan. It asks two questions. First, what has Sudan Studies been as a colonial and postcolonial field of academic inquiry and how should or must it change? Second, should we continue to write about a single arena of Sudan Studies now that Sudan has split apart? The authors advance a “manifesto” for Sudan Studies by urging scholars to map out more intellectual terrain by attending to non-elite actors and women; grass-roots and local history; the environment and the arts; oral sources; and interdisciplinary studies of culture, politics, and society. They propose that scholars can transcend the changing boundaries of the nation-state, and recognize connections forged through past and present migrations and contacts, by studying the Sudan as a zone rather than a fixed country. Finally, in their introduction to this bilingual special issue, they highlight the increasing relevance of French scholarship to the endeavor of rethinking Sudan Studies. Résumé Cet essai évalue la situation des « études soudanaises » après la sécession du Soudan du Sud. Il pose deux questions. La première : En quoi ont consisté les études soudanaises en tant que domaine colonial et postcolonial de recherche universitaire et dans quelle mesure doivent-elles changer, si tant est qu\u27elles doivent changer ? La seconde : Devrions-nous continuer à baser nos écrits sur un domaine unique d\u27études soudanaises maintenant que le Soudan est divisé ? Les auteurs proposent un « manifeste » pour les études soudanaises en exhortant les experts à cartographier un terrain intellectuel élargi en s\u27intéressant aux acteurs ne faisant pas partie des élites et des femmes ; à l\u27histoire de la base populaire et locale ; à l\u27environnement et à l\u27art ; aux sources orales ; et aux études interdisciplinaires portant sur la culture, la politique et la société. Ils avancent que les chercheurs peuvent aller au-delà des frontières en mutation de l\u27État-nation et reconnaitre les connexions établies grâce aux migrations et aux contacts passés et présents en étudiant le Soudan comme zone plutôt que comme un pays fixe. Enfin, dans leur introduction à ce numéro bilingue spécial, ils mettent en relief la pertinence croissance des travaux universitaires français dans le cadre de l\u27initiative visant à repenser les études soudanaises

Libya: Frå Qadhafi til Khalifa Haftar

To hendingar har bidratt til å sette Libya i fokus igjen den siste våren. Den eine var ei evaluering av den norske innsatsen i Libya-krigen i 2011, som var oppe til debatt i Stortinget, og som reiste spørsmålet om Norge hadde eit medansvar for det kaoset som følgte. Det andre var eit dramatisk skifte i dette kaoset da ein "krigsherre" eller "sjøloppnevnt general" fra Aust-Libya marsjerte mot hovudstaden Tripoli og truga med å ta makta i landet.To hendingar har bidratt til å sette Libya i fokus igjen den siste våren. Den eine var ei evaluering av den norske innsatsen i Libya-krigen i 2011, som var oppe til debatt i Stortinget, og som reiste spørsmålet om Norge hadde eit medansvar for det kaoset som følgte. Det andre var eit dramatisk skifte i dette kaoset da ein "krigsherre" eller "sjøloppnevnt general" fra Aust-Libya marsjerte mot hovudstaden Tripoli og truga med å ta makta i landet

Ibadism and Law in Historical Contexts

Not Sunnis and not Shi’is, the Ibāḍī Muslims of Oman and some areas of North Africa form a “third branch” of Islam, with their own version of the Sharīʿa law. The development of this law displays many interconnections with the political history of the Ibāḍīs, which spanned from an independent sultanate in Oman, through minority status under Sunni rule in Tunisia and Libya, to isolated desert communities in Algerian Sahara. This article gives an overview over such interconnections between the political (state authority) and the legal, through history and in contemporary North Africa, with some examples of legal discussions from the “Ibāḍī renaissance” (nahḍa) in the twentieth-century Saharan oasis of Mzab. Ni suníes ni chiíes, los musulmanes ibadíes de Omán y de algunas zonas del norte de África forman una “tercera rama” del Islam, con su propia versión de la ley de la sharía. El desarrollo de esa ley expone muchas interconexiones con la historia política de los ibadíes, la cual abarcó desde un sultanato independiente en Omán, pasando por ser una minoría bajo el dominio suní en Túnez y Libia, a comunidades aisladas en el desierto del Sáhara en Argelia. Este artículo hace un repaso de dichas interconexiones entre lo político (autoridad estatal) y lo jurídico, a través de la Historia y en el Norte de África en la actualidad, con algunos ejemplos de debates jurídicos sobre el “renacimiento ibadí” (nahḍa) en el oasis del Sáhara del siglo XX de Mzab

Europeisk lov og islamsk lov

Lovene vi har i Midtausten er ikkje så mye arva frå "kolonitida" som dei samme som i denne tida. Derfor må vi heller sjå på kva dei sjølstendige statane har endra i forhold til det som var før europearane. Her kan vi sjå ei utvikling i retning av meir "moderne" normer, men også større statskontroll over det private

Islamic Law: The Sources

The historiography of the early development of Islamic law, the Sharia, is highly contentious both among Muslims and secular historians. In economic field, this takes the form of the growth of an ‘Islamic banking system’, which avoids giving and taking interest on loans, as is forbidden in the Sharia. The more established groups such as the Islamic State does, however, actually often adopt a classical fiqh discourse, perhaps to bolster their image as a ‘serious Islamic’. Any law that provides morality, justice and welfare, is ‘Sharia’ as far as they are concerned. The traditional dual system of a Sharia court and a sultan’s or state court reappeared, only the state courts were not mazalim following Sharia principles, but civil courts practising the new westernized or modernized laws. The traditional Muslim historiography of fiqh does not, however, focus particularly on this ‘practised’ caliphal law, but rather on the development of groups of religious scholars who were particularly concerned with the law