Introduction: Uses of the Past: Sharīʿa and Gender in Legal Theory and Practice in Palestine and Israel (original) (raw)

In 2018 all Muslim majority countries with the exception of Saudi Arabia have codified laws in the area of family law; in Saudi Arabia discussions to codify the sharīʿa are ongoing. Methods such as takhayyur (selection of one legal opinion, of a school of law, over another) and talfīq ('combination and fusion of juristic opinions, and of elements therefrom, of diverse nature and provenance'), 1 together with administrative orders, reference to public interest (maṣlaḥa) and reinterpretation of textual sources (ijtihād), have been used as a juristic basis for accommodating sharīʿa via statutory legislation. 2 The result has been a legislation which has been characterised in contrasting ways, either as a reformed and modernized sharīʿa not substantially departing from Tradition, or as emerging from a "process of detachment from the sharīʿa and even its 'secularization'." 3 Yet, Islamic law remains doubtless the frame of discussion in the majority if not in all Muslim states with regard to legal debates, legislative amendments and the political and social rights of men and women. 4 The past is invoked, Quranic verses are quoted to argue in favor or against women's rights and the example of the Prophet

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