This book considers the rarely studied but pervasive concepts of doubt that medieval Muslim jurists used to resolve problematic criminal cases.

This book is an analysis of the legal theories of two classical Sh Muslim writers: one an Akhb r, the other an Us li. It provides insight, not only into Islamic jurisprudence, but also the Akhb r -Us li conflict in Twelver Sh sm.

Using contemporary illustrations, Legal Maxims in Islamic Criminal Law delves into the theoretical and practical studies of al-Qawaid al-Fiqhiyyah in Islamic legal theory. It elucidates the importance of this concept in the application of Islamic law and demonstrates how the concept relates to the objectives of Islamic law (maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah), generally. Included in this examination are the following maxims: al-Umūr bi-Maqāṣidihā ("Matters shall be Judged by their Objectives"); al-Yaqīn lā Yazūl bi-sh-Shakk ("Certainty Cannot be Overruled by Doubt"); al-Mashaqqa Tajlib at-Taysīr ("Hardship begets Facility"); Lā Ḍarar wa-lā Ḍirār ("No Injury or Harm shall be Inflicted or Reciprocated"); and al-ʿĀda Muḥakkama ("Custom is Authoritative").

The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law reflects the continued transformation of criminal law into a global discipline, providing scholars with a comprehensive international resource, a common point of entry into cutting edge contemporary research and a snapshot of the state and scope of the field. To this end, the Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter, disciplinarily, geographically, and systematically. Its contributors include current and future research leaders representing a variety of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise, and research agendas. The Handbook is divided into four parts: Approaches & Methods (I), Systems & Methods (II), Aspects & Issues (III), and Contexts & Comparisons (IV). Part I includes essays exploring various methodological approaches to criminal law (such as criminology, feminist studies, and history). Part II provides an overview of systems or models of criminal law, laying the foundation for further inquiry into specific conceptions of criminal law as well as for comparative analysis (such as Islamic, Marxist, and military law). Part III covers the three aspects of the penal process: the definition of norms and principles of liability (substantive criminal law), along with a less detailed treatment of the imposition of norms (criminal procedure) and the infliction of sanctions (prison law). Contributors consider the basic topics traditionally addressed in scholarship on the general and special parts of the substantive criminal law (such as jurisdiction, mens rea, justifications, and excuses). Part IV places criminal law in context, both domestically and transnationally, by exploring the contrasts between criminal law and other species of law and state power and by investigating criminal law's place in the projects of comparative law, transnational, and international law.

The Research Handbook on Islamic Law and Society provides an examination of the role of Islamic law as it applies in Muslim and non-Muslim societies through legislation, fatwa, court cases, sermons, media, or scholarly debate. It illuminates the intersection of social, political, economic and cultural factors that inform Islamic Law across a number of jurisdictions. Chapters evaluate when and how actors and institutions have turned to Islamic law to address problems faced by societies in Muslim and, in some cases, Western states.

In The Politics of Islamic Law, Iza Hussin compares India, Malaya, and Egypt during the British colonial period in order to trace the making and transformation of the contemporary category of ‘Islamic law.’ She demonstrates that not only is Islamic law not the shari’ah, its present institutional forms, substantive content, symbolic vocabulary, and relationship to state and society—in short, its politics—are built upon foundations laid during the colonial encounter. Drawing on extensive archival work in English, Arabic, and Malay—from court records to colonial and local papers to private letters and visual material—Hussin offers a view of politics in the colonial period as an iterative series of negotiations between local and colonial powers in multiple locations. She shows how this resulted in a paradox, centralizing Islamic law at the same time that it limited its reach to family and ritual matters, and produced a transformation in the Muslim state, providing the frame within which Islam is articulated today, setting the agenda for ongoing legislation and policy, and defining the limits of change. Combining a genealogy of law with a political analysis of its institutional dynamics, this book offers an up-close look at the ways in which global transformations are realized at the local level.

An examination of how Muslim scholars from four schools of law and theology debate the ethical issues that coercion generates when considering a person's moral agency and responsibility in cases of speech acts, rape, and murder. It proposes a new model for analyzing ethical thought and compares Islamic with Western thought on the same cases.