Majid Khadduri, one of the world's preeminent authorities on Islamic justice and jurisprudence, presents his extensive study and reflection on Islamic political, legal, ethical, and social philosophy. This book is both a magisterial historical synthesis and an illumination of the beliefs and practices of modern Islam. (World Religion)

The book is laid out to outline the Islamic standpoint on justice and it's high standard. This manuscript will attempt to clarify a major misconception that has gained widespread acceptance in some academic circles. The misconception is that the Muslim judge judges blindly according to a rigid set of outdated laws without giving due consideration to what is in the best interest of either the public or in upholding the rights of a person. Finally, it will seek to demonstrate how the ethical standards that govern the conduct and office of the qadi reinforces the public trust and confidence in the Islamic judicial system as a whole. Given that the Islamic judiciary does not have the powers of the sword or the purse - powers that are reserved for the executive and the legislative branches of government - respect is said to be the greatest strength of the institution itself.Islamic law requires a Muslim judge (hakim or qadi) to conform to the highest ethical standards both in their personal conduct and in issuing rulings that are just and seen to be just.

In the West, we tend to think of Islamic law as an arcane and rigid legal system, bound by formulaic texts yet suffused by unfettered discretion. While judges may indeed refer to passages in the classical texts or have recourse to their own orientations, images of binding doctrine and unbounded choice do not reflect the full reality of the Islamic law in its everyday practice. Whether in the Arabic-speaking world, the Muslim portions of South and Southeast Asia, or the countries to which many Muslims have migrated, Islamic law works is readily misunderstood if the local cultures in which it is embedded are not taken into account. With Islam and the Rule of Justice, Lawrence Rosen analyzes a number of these misperceptions. Drawing on specific cases, he explores the application of Islamic law to the treatment of women (who win most of their cases), the relations between Muslims and Jews (which frequently involve close personal and financial ties), and the structure of widespread corruption (which played a key role in prompting the Arab Spring). From these case studie the role of informal mechanisms in the resolution of local disputes. The author also provides a close reading of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was charged in an American court with helping to carry out the 9/11 attacks, using insights into how Islamic justice works to explain the defendant’s actions during the trial. The book closes with an examination of how Islamic cultural concepts may come to bear on the constitutional structure and legal reforms many Muslim countries have been undertaking.

Presents an analysis of what justice is, the transcendental theory of justice and its drawbacks, and a persuasive argument for a comparative perspective on justice that can guide us in the choice between alternatives.

Law has often been seen as a relatively autonomous domain, one in which a professional elite sharply control the impact of broader social relations and cultural concepts. By contrast this study asserts that the analysis of legal systems, like the analysis of social systems generally, requires an understanding of the concepts and relationships encountered in everyday social life. Using as its substantive base the Islamic law courts of Morocco, the study explores the cultural basis of judicial discretion. From the proposition that in Arabic culture relationships are subject to considerable negotiation the idea is developed that the shaping of facts in a court of law, the use of local experts, and the organization of the judicial structure all contribute to the reliance on local concepts and personnel to inform the range of judicial discretion. By drawing comparisons with the exercise of judicial discretion in America the study demonstrates that cultural concepts deeply inform the evaluation of issues and the shapes of a judge's decision. The Anthropology of Justice is not only the first full-scale study of the actual operations of the actual operations of a modern Islamic law court anywhere in the Arab world but a demonstration of the theoretical basis on which a cultural analysis of the law may be founded.

Using data ranging from the courts of North Africa to the treatment of Islam in American courts, these essays demonstrate the appeal of Islamic law in the lives of everyday adherents.