Inter- and intra-clan conflicts in Northern Israel pit hundreds against each other in revenge cycles that take years to resolve and impact the entire community. The Sulha is a Shari’a-based traditional conflict resolution process that works independently of formal legal systems and is widely practiced to manage such conflicts in the north of Israel, as well as throughout the Muslim and Arab worlds. The Sulha process works by effecting a gradual attitudinal transformation, from a desire for revenge to a willingness to forgive, through restoration of the victim’s clan sense of honour. Muslim/Arab Mediation and Conflict Resolution examines the process of Sulha, as practiced by the Arab population of northern Israel, where it plays a central role in the maintenance of peace among Muslims, Christians, and Druze alike. It presents detailed analysis of every stage of this at times protracted process. It uses interviews with victims, perpetrators, Sulha practitioners, community leaders and lawyers, along with statistical analysis to examine how Sulha affects people’s lives, how various sectors of society impact the practice, and how it coexists with Israel’s formal legal system. Furthermore, it examines how Sulha compares to Western dispute resolution processes. This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of the entire Sulha process, and is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East studies, Islamic studies and conflict resolution.

Mediation in Islam is referred to as sulh, meaning "negotiated settlement", which closely resembles what is known as mediation or faith-based mediations in the West. Sulh grants parties the flexibility to apply their own laws, cultures, and guidelines to their particular circumstances. Mediation & Islam reintroduces sulh processes to communities and tailors them to the community's current needs. Materializing creative solutions and focusing on reconciliation revives Prophet Muhammad's (S) tradition, which emphasizes sulh among the community at large by allowing people to discuss their differences with the help of a third-party neutral. The purpose of this book is to marry concepts within sulh and mediation practices in the West to provide people with a practical and fruitful approach to conflict resolution. In addition, it equips practitioners with tools to assist them in mediating cases that have at least one Muslim party. Mediation & Islam outlines times in which mediation would be used, explains the benefits of using mediation over other legal avenues such as litigation and arbitration, and provides a step-by-step process on how to conduct a mediation from start to finish.

“A theoretically sophisticated reading of the mediation of social and spiritual relationships in Fez.” —Gregory Starrett, University of North Carolina at Charlotte The sacred calls that summon believers are the focus of this study of religion and power in Fez, Morocco. Focusing on how dissemination of the call through mass media has transformed understandings of piety and authority, Emilio Spadola details the new importance of once-marginal Sufi practices such as spirit trance and exorcism for ordinary believers, the state, and Islamist movements. The Calls of Islam offers new ethnographic perspectives on ritual, performance, and media in the Muslim world. “A superb demonstration of anthropological analysis at its best. A major contribution to our understanding of the complicated nexus of religion, nationalism, and technology.” —Charles Hirschkind, author of The Feeling of History “An instructive contribution to the literature on Morocco’s socio-cultural and political idiosyncrasies.” —Review of Middle East Studies “Spadola’s dense but short study . . . manages admirably well to deal with a complex topic, skillfully balancing ethnographic and analytic elements.” —American Ethnologist “[The] tension between social classes is subtly drawn out throughout this exemplary book, and Spadola also does a magnificent job tying local, national, and transnational contexts together. Although writing about a very specific place and time, he manages to capture post-millennial anxieties about Islam and belonging that are far reaching in their scope.” —Contemporary Islam “Spadola’s book is theoretically sophisticated, skillfully constructed, and rich in detail.” —Journal of Religion

The meanings and contexts of Shari'a are the subject of both curiosity and misunderstanding by non-Muslims. Shari'a is sometimes crudely characterised by outsiders as a punitive legal system operating broadly outside, and separate from, national laws and customs. This groundbreaking book shows that Shari'a and its 'fiqh' (laws set forward by various Islamic legal schools) comprise a far more nuanced matrix of interpretations than is often assumed to be the case. Far from being monolithic or impervious to change from without, Muslim legal tradition has - since its beginnings in the early Islamic period - placed an emphasis on equity and non-adversarial conflict-resolution. Mohamed Keshavjee examines both Sunni and Shi'a applications of Islamic law, demonstrating how political, cultural and other factors have influenced the practice of fiqh and Shari'a in the West. Exploring in particular the modern development of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), the author shows that this process can revitalise some of the essential principles that underlie Muslim teachings and jurispudence, delivering not only formal remedies but also perceived justice, even to non-Muslims.

Inter- and intra-clan conflicts in Northern Israel pit hundreds against each other in revenge cycles that take years to resolve and impact the entire community. The Sulha is a Shari’a-based traditional conflict resolution process that works independently of formal legal systems and is widely practiced to manage such conflicts in the north of Israel, as well as throughout the Muslim and Arab worlds. The Sulha process works by effecting a gradual attitudinal transformation, from a desire for revenge to a willingness to forgive, through restoration of the victim’s clan sense of honour. Muslim/Arab Mediation and Conflict Resolution examines the process of Sulha, as practiced by the Arab population of northern Israel, where it plays a central role in the maintenance of peace among Muslims, Christians, and Druze alike. It presents detailed analysis of every stage of this at times protracted process. It uses interviews with victims, perpetrators, Sulha practitioners, community leaders and lawyers, along with statistical analysis to examine how Sulha affects people’s lives, how various sectors of society impact the practice, and how it coexists with Israel’s formal legal system. Furthermore, it examines how Sulha compares to Western dispute resolution processes. This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of the entire Sulha process, and is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East studies, Islamic studies and conflict resolution.

"Islamic Law and International Law is a comprehensive examination of differences and similarities between the Islamic legal tradition and international law, especially in the context of dispute settlement. Sharia embraces a unique logic and culture of justice--based on nonconfrontational dispute resolution--as taught by the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. This book explains how the creeds of Islamic dispute resolution shape the Islamic milieu's views of international law. Is the Islamic legal tradition ab initio incompatible with international law, and how do states of the Islamic milieu view international courts, mediation, and arbitration? Islamic law constitutes an important part of the domestic legal system in many states of the Islamic milieu--Islamic law states--displacing secular law in state governance and affecting these states' contemporary international dealings. The book analyzes constitutional and subconstitutional laws in Islamic law states. The answer to the "Islamic law-international law nexus puzzle" lies in the diversity of how secular laws and religious laws fuse in domestic legal systems across the Islamic milieu. These states are not Islamic to the same degree or in the same way. Thus, different international conflict management methods appeal to different states, depending on each one's domestic legal system. The main claim of the book is that in many instances the Islamic legal tradition points in one direction while Western-based, secularized international law points in another direction. This conflict is partially softened by the reality that the Islamic legal tradition itself has elements fundamentally compatible with modern international law. Islamic legal tradition, international law, sharia settlement, peaceful dispute resolution"--

There are twenty-nine Islamic law states (ILS) in the world today, and their Muslim population is over 900 million. Muslims in these countries--and, to some extent, all Muslims--are ethically, morally, doctrinally, or politically committed to the Islamic legal tradition, a unique logic and culture of justice based on nonconfrontational dispute resolution. In Islamic Law and International Law, Emilia Justyna Powell examines the differences and similarities between the Islamic legal tradition and international law, focusing in particular on the issue of conflict management and resolution. In many Islamic Law States, Islamic law displaces secular law in state governance and shapes these countries' international dealings. Powell considers why some of Islamic Law States accept international courts while others avoid them, stressing throughout that we cannot make blanket claims about such states. Each relationship is context-specific, hinging on the nature of the domestic legal system. Moreover, not all of these states are Islamic to the same degree or in the same way. Secular law and religious law fuse in different ways in different domestic legal systems. Often, the Islamic legal tradition points in one direction, while the Western-based, secularized international law points in another. However, Powell argues that Islamic legal tradition contains elements that are compatible with modern international law. She marshals original data on the legal systems structures in thirty Islamic Law States over the entire course of the post-World War Two era, and she draws from in-depth interviews with Islamic law scholars and leading practitioners of international law, including judges of the International Court of Justice. Rich in empirical evidence, this book will reshape how we think about the relationship between ILS and the international system.