Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity

From different geographical and ideological points across the contemporary Arab world, this book demonstrates the range of views on just what Islam's legal heritage in the region should be.

In examining the transformation of traditional Islamic legal culture in a world of
nation-states and tracing the as-yet uneasy relationship of the culture with
Western notions of human rights and civil liberties, this volume is a contribution to
the long-standing debates among scholars both East and West on the nature and
functions of shari'a, Islamic law, in the modern age. Both the Western notion of "
Islamic law" and the use of the concept of "shari'a" by the traditionalist and
Islamist cadres ...