Drawing on theories of legal pluralism, this book tests whether and to what extent claims of the modern nation-state laws to exclusive dominance over other spheres are tenable, and reassesses the operation of law in society. Incorporating a combination of legal theory, post-modern critique and socio-legal analysis of three current jurisdictions in which Muslims play an important role, the volume identifies Muslims' current socio-legal situation and attitudes from different perspectives and reconciles them with modern legal systems in three key countries. It analyzes the conflict between the assumptions of modern legal systems and plural legal realities, and also examines attempts by modern legal systems to impose official laws in the face of resistance from unofficial Muslim laws and discusses possible responses to the challenge of dynamic Muslim legal pluralism. A valuable resource for students, researchers and academics with an interest in the areas of Islamic law and politics, and the interplay between secular law and religious/cultural traditions.

The current rise of Islamism throughout the Muslim world, Islamists’ demand for the establishment of Islamic states, and their destabilizing impact on regional and global orders have raised important questions about the origins of Islamism and the nature of an Islamic state. Beginning with the Iranian revolution of the late 1970s and the establishment of the Islamic Republic to today’s rise of ISIS to prominence, it has become increasingly apparent that Islamism is a major global force in the twenty-first century that demands acknowledgment and answers. As a highly-integrated belief system, the Islamic worldview rejects secularism and accounts for a prominent role for religion in the politics and laws of Muslim societies. Islam is primarily a legal framework that covers all aspects of Muslims’ individual and communal lives. In this sense, the Islamic state is a logical instrument for managing Muslim societies. Even moderate Muslims who genuinely, but not necessarily vociferously, challenge the extremists’ strategies are not dismissive of the political role of Islam and the viability of an Islamic state. However, sectarian and scholastic schisms within Islam that date back to the prophet’s demise do undermine any possibility of consensus about the legal, institutional, and policy parameters of the Islamic state. Within its Shi’a sectarian limitations, this book attempts to offer some answers to questions about the nature of the Islamic state. Nearly four decades of experience with the Islamic Republic of Iran offers us some insights into such a state’s accomplishments, potentials, and challenges. While the Islamic worldview offers a general framework for governance, this framework is in dire need of modification to be applicable to modern societies. As Iranians have learned, in the realm of practical politics, transcending the restrictive precepts of Islam is the most viable strategy for building a functional Islamic state. Indeed, Islam does provide both doctrinal and practical instruments for transcending these restrictions. This pursuit of pragmatism could potentially offer impressive strategies for governance as long as sectarian, scholastic, and autocratic proclivities of authorities do not derail the rights of the public and their demand for an orderly management of their societies.

One of the most important developments in Muslim politics in recent years has been the spread of movements calling for the implementation of Shari'a or Islamic law. Shari'a Politics maps the ideals and organization of these movements and examines their implications for the future of democracy, citizen rights, and gender relations in the Muslim world. These studies of eight Muslim-majority societies, and state-of-the-field reflections by leading experts, provide the first comparative investigation of movements for and against implementation of Shari'a. These essays reveal that the Muslim public's interest in Shari'a does not spring from an unchanging devotion to received religious tradition, but from an effort to respond to the central political and ethical questions of the day. -- Publisher description.

Wael B. Hallaq boldly argues that the "Islamic state," judged by any standard definition of what the modern state represents, is both impossible and inherently self-contradictory. Comparing the legal, political, moral, and constitutional histories of premodern Islam and Euro-America, he finds the adoption and practice of the modern state to be highly problematic for modern Muslims. He also critiques more expansively modernity's moral predicament, which renders impossible any project resting solely on ethical foundations. The modern state not only suffers from serious legal, political, and constitutional issues, Hallaq argues, but also, by its very nature, fashions a subject inconsistent with what it means to be, or to live as, a Muslim. By Islamic standards, the state's technologies of the self are severely lacking in moral substance, and today's Islamic state, as Hallaq shows, has done little to advance an acceptable form of genuine Shari'a governance. The Islamists' constitutional battles in Egypt and Pakistan, the Islamic legal and political failures of the Iranian Revolution, and similar disappointments underscore this fact. Nevertheless, the state remains the favored template of the Islamists and the ulama (Muslim clergymen). Providing Muslims with a path toward realizing the good life, Hallaq turns to the rich moral resources of Islamic history. Along the way, he proves political and other "crises of Islam" are not unique to the Islamic world nor to the Muslim religion. These crises are integral to the modern condition of both East and West, and by acknowledging these parallels, Muslims can engage more productively with their Western counterparts.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics provides in-depth coverage of the political dimensions of Islam and the Muslim world. Developments in Muslim societies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have highlighted the need for a major reference work focusing primarily on thesedimensions. The realization of internal decay and relentless quest for reform, the collapse of the Islamic caliphate, the fall of most parts of the Muslim world under western colonialism, the emergence of nation-states, the dominance of secular ideologies, the rise of Islamic revivalist movementsand faith-based political, economic, and social alternatives, the confrontation between Islamic movements and secular inspired regimes have constituted major turning points in the contemporary history of Muslim societies. At no time has the understanding of the nature and implications of thesedevelopments been needed more.Based on the highly acclaimed 2009 publication, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics brings together over 400 new and updated entries to create a single, specialized reference source on this important topic.

PART ONE. THE CULTURE, POLITICAL ECONOMY, AND HISTORY OF THE ISLAMIC COURTS -- Locating Islamic Magistrates and Their Courts in History -- The Work of the Courts -- Litigant Strategies and Patterns of Resistance -- PART TWO. MODERNITY AND GOVERNMENTALITY IN ISLAMIC COURTS AND OTHER DOMAINS -- Reinscribing Authenticity and Identity -- Producing Good Subjects, "Asian Values," and New Types of Criminality.

Challenging incarceration and policing was central to the postwar Black Freedom Movement. In this bold new political and intellectual history of the Nation of Islam, Garrett Felber centers the Nation in the Civil Rights Era and the making of the modern carceral state. In doing so, he reveals a multifaceted freedom struggle that focused as much on policing and prisons as on school desegregation and voting rights. The book examines efforts to build broad-based grassroots coalitions among liberals, radicals, and nationalists to oppose the carceral state and struggle for local Black self-determination. It captures the ambiguous place of the Nation of Islam specifically, and Black nationalist organizing more broadly, during an era which has come to be defined by nonviolent resistance, desegregation campaigns, and racial liberalism. By provocatively documenting the interplay between law enforcement and Muslim communities, Felber decisively shows how state repression and Muslim organizing laid the groundwork for the modern carceral state and the contemporary prison abolition movement which opposes it. Exhaustively researched, the book illuminates new sites and forms of political struggle as Muslims prayed under surveillance in prison yards and used courtroom political theater to put the state on trial. This history captures familiar figures in new ways--Malcolm X the courtroom lawyer and A. Philip Randolph the Harlem coalition builder--while highlighting the forgotten organizing of rank-and-file activists in prisons such as Martin Sostre. This definitive account is an urgent reminder that Islamophobia, state surveillance, and police violence have deep roots in the state repression of Black communities during the mid-20th century.