Good and bad Sharia : Australia's mixed response to Islamic law

Reflecting on the legal consequences of globalisation in the 21st century, Twining predicted that societies in the West would have to 'wrestle with the extent to which the state should recognise, make concessions to, or even enforce norms and values embedded in different religions, cultures or traditions'. This is borne out as the direction across the common law world moves towards entrenching legal pluralism. The concessions each nation has made to minorities with different religions, cultures and traditions have varied. The special character of Islam, as a comprehensive blueprint for life in which law and religion unite, has meant that the negotiations for a special place for Muslims within each common law jurisdiction has been at the forefront of new legal ordering possibilities. This is the crux of the pluralism debate. Cautiously, Australians have watched the, at times histrionic, discourse in Canada and Great Britain on official recognition for Islamic law.

Islamic law and international law: the terms of a relationship

The relationship between Islamic Law and other legal systems (basically western type domestic legal orders and international law) is often thought of in terms of compatibility or incompatibility. Concerning certain subject matters of choice, the compatibility of Islamic (legal) principles with the values embedded in legal systems that are regarded as characteristic of the Modern Age is tested by sets of questions: is democracy possible in Islam? Does Islam recognize human rights and are those rights equivalent to a more universal conception? Does Islam recognize or condone more extreme acts of violence and does it justify violence differently? Etc. Such questions and many more presuppose the existence of an ensemble of rules or principles which, as any other set of rules and principles, purport to regulate social behavior. This ensemble is generically referred to as Islamic Law. However, one set of questions is usually left unanswered: is Islamic Law a legal system? If it is a legal system, what are its specific characteristics? How does it work? Where does it apply? It is this paper`s argument that the relationship between Islamic Law and domestic and international law can only be understood if looked upon as a relationship between distinct legal systems or legal orders.

Islamic law in the modern world.

Incldes bibliography.

Fetava-yi Ali Efendi ma'an-nukûl

Caption title.

Fetava-yi Feyziyye ma'an-nukul

[Feyzullah Efendi].

Miyar-ı adalet: fenn-i celil-i fıkıhtan cinayat ve diyat kitaplarını havidir

eser-i hame-yi Ömer Hilmi.

Ahkam-i mer'iye

[katabahu al-faqīr Aḥmad ʻĀrif Ḥikmat ibn Ibrāhīm ʻIṣmat al-Ḥusaynī].

Rehber-i talibin-i Mecelle

Mehmet Ali Bey'in eseridir.

Külliyat-i şerh-ı kanun-i arazi

Halis Eşref.

al- Majallah: wa-hiya taḥtawī ʻalá al-qawānīn al-sharʻīyah wa-al-aḥkām al-ʹadlīyah al-muṭābiqah lil-kutub al-fiqhīyah

ḥarrarathā lajnah muʼallafah min al-ʹulamāʼ al-muḥaqqiqīn wa-al-fuqahāʼ al-mudaqqiqīn wa-baʻda an waqaʻat ladá al-Bāb al-ʻĀlī mawqiʻ al-istiḥsān taʻallaqat al-irādah al-sanīyah bi-an takūna dustūr lil-ʻamal bihā.

The “Iranian ART Revolution”: infertility, assisted reproductive technology, and third-party donation in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Infertility is a social onus for women in Iran, who are expected to produce children early within marriage. With its estimated 1.5 million infertile couples, Iran is the only Muslim country in which assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) using donor gametes and embryos have been legitimized by religious authorities and passed into law. Th is has placed Iran, a Shia-dominant country, in a unique position vis-à-vis the Sunni Islamic world, where all forms of gamete donation are strictly prohibited. In this article, we first examine the “Iranian ART revolution” that has allowed donor technologies to be admitted as a form of assisted reproduction. Then we examine the response of Iranian women to their infertility and the profound social pressures they face. We argue that the experience of infertility and its treatment are mediated by women’s socioeconomic position within Iranian society. Many women lack economic access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) technologies and fear the moral consequences of gamete donation. Thus, the benefits of the Iranian ART revolution are mixed: although many Iranian women have been able to overcome their infertility through ARTs, not all women’s lives are improved by these technologies.