Annotation. In 2000 and 2001, twelve northern states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria introduced Islamic criminal law as one of a number of measures aiming at "reintroducing the shari'a." Immediately after its adoption, defendants were sentenced to death by stoning or to amputation of the hand. Apart from a few well publicised trials, however, the number and nature of cases tried under Islamic criminal law are little known. Based on a sample of trials, the present thesis discusses the introduction of Islamic criminal law and the evolution of judicial practice within the regions historical, cultural, political and religious context. The introduction of Islamic criminal law was initiated by politicians and supported by Muslim reform groups, but its potential effects were soon mitigated on higher judicial levels and aspects of the law were contained by local administrators. This title can be previewed in Google Books - http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9789056296551.

Shariʿa, Justice and Legal Order: Egyptian and Islamic Law: Selected Essays by Rudolph Peters is about legal practice, both Shariʿa and state law. Its principal themes are legal order and the actual application of law in the Ottoman and more recent periods

A survey of Sharia criminal law, commissioned by the European Commission, and to provide analysis of the re-islamification of the Northern Nigerian states, based on classical Islamic texts. The study clarifies and explains the circumstances and background to these new codes, paying special attention to the Koraic offences of fornication, theft, robbery and alcohol consumption. It further identifies conflicts between these codes and the human rights principles guaranteed in the Nigerian federal constitution, and in the United Nations conventions on human rights to which Nigeria is a signatory; and surmises the views of the local people about the laws. The author is Professor of Islamic Law at the University of Amsterdam.