Papers by Gianluca Parolin
Islamochristiana, 2022
Documenti come quello sulla Fratellanza umana sono diventati un elemento non trascurabile del dia... more Documenti come quello sulla Fratellanza umana sono diventati un elemento non trascurabile del dialogo intra- e inter-religioso con i leader politici e religiosi musulmani a partire dai primi anni 2000. Questa lezione inaugurale dell’anno accademico si propone di attirare l’attenzione di studenti e colleghi impegnati nel dialogo interreligioso sulle modalità fondamentali attraverso cui il significato viene generato e comunicato in que- sti documenti. Prendendo la “cittadinanza” come caso di studio, la lezione esplora (1) l’orizzonte semiotico (giuridico) dei documenti e il suo impatto sulla interpretazione di “cittadinanza”, (2) la traiettoria del concetto di “cittadinanza” nella teoria costituzionale egiziana moderna e contemporanea, e infine (3) le opportunità (e le sfide) della ridefini- zione del concetto nel contesto del dialogo interreligioso.
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“Spazio e Frontiera” In ricordo di Giorgio Lombardi, 2022
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Islamochristiana, 2020
'Citizenship' (muwāṭana) has come to take centre stage in discussions over the status of religiou... more 'Citizenship' (muwāṭana) has come to take centre stage in discussions over the status of religious minorities in Muslim-majority contexts, and even interreligious dialogue. This article explores how the concept has been framed by discussions about the modern state over the past couple of centuries, its rise to prominence in the past couple of decades, and its still infrequent occurrence in religious discourse. By focusing on the framing of the concept at the convention of Marrakesh of 2016, and its consecration in the action points of the final Declaration, the article explores the profound ambiguities where considerable potential lies. Taking centre stage is, in and of itself, a remarkable achievement and indicative of a particular direction.
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Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo Online (open access), 2020
Just five years after its coming into force, the 2014 Constitution of Egypt has been amended to a... more Just five years after its coming into force, the 2014 Constitution of Egypt has been amended to accommodate changing power relations in the country. Arguably, citizens had little appetite for yet another round of amendments after the three years of tumultuous constitutional transition that followed the 2011 Revolution. Renegotiating the status and role of the Presidency, the Judiciary, the Legislative, and the Armed Forces was at the heart of the amendment process. The institutions traditionally limiting the executive seem to recede, while the President and the Armed Forces entrench their respective positions, seemingly posturing as a relative counter-power.
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Journal of Commonwealth and Post-Colonial Studies, 2019
What has become the dominant jurisprudential view in the North. i.e.: legal positivism, has circu... more What has become the dominant jurisprudential view in the North. i.e.: legal positivism, has circulated and taken root in the South. Picking up a law textbook in Egypt will easily prove the strength and vitality of this leading epistemic approach that Jean & John Comaroff's Theory from the South (2012) challenges. No textbook will engage with the problematic (ab)uses of the language of the law, or the impact of class in law enforcement. On the contrary, Egyptian TV series signal the perception of the centrality of these two issues in the functioning of law enforcement. TV series suggest that at the heart of a grounded theory of law enforcement sit (1) the perception that law and its language are just purposefully used by authorities to disempower ordinary citizens, and (2) the perception that the fiction of equality in front of the law has no teeth to unseat class privilege. Is this an Egyptian “dysfunction,” or a wider global phenomenon?
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Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 2018
The article uses the lens of popular culture to consider two aspects of religious marriage in Egy... more The article uses the lens of popular culture to consider two aspects of religious marriage in Egypt that would otherwise be missed because they escape both state control and court enforcement. In engaging with some fringe aspects of religious marriage, Egyptian television drama tests the boundaries of their social acceptability, sometimes by challenging, sometimes by reinforcing the taboos of its conventional articulation. In the extremely popular serial Sābiʿ Gār (‘Seventh Neighbour’, 2017‒2018), the authors re- frame the taboo of interfaith marriages within the broader hypocrisy of interfaith social relations, and the non-denominational rules of gendered morality in Egyptian society. But they also follow the social containment of the desire of motherhood of a young woman who has no desire to get married in order to become pregnant. In both cases, the conventional articulation could actually accommodate developments that are, however, socially resisted. Mobilisation against the serial’s perceived moral laxity prompted unscheduled suspensions of its airing — and its eventual cancellation.
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On the Centennial of Law 25 of 1920, the conference considers the past one hundred years of famil... more On the Centennial of Law 25 of 1920, the conference considers the past one hundred years of family law reform in Egypt (and beyond) from the vantage point of the relations between governance and popular culture. The aim is to explore how changes in the social practices related to the family are a function of legislative interventions, court decisions, and expectations generated in popular culture.
Popular culture tends to be the prominent absent in the narrative of changes in family law, and the workshop intends to reflect on how to build a broader, common narrative where films and television productions can feature as powerful agents of societal practices, alongside legislative interventions and court decisions.
Deadline for abstracts: 15-Mar-2020. Conference in London on 28-29-May-2020
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The Governance Programme at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisatio... more The Governance Programme at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) invites papers in the disciplines of legal anthropology, law and comparative law, legal pragmatics, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, politics and translation studies for a two-day conference on translations of legal discourse in Arabic-speaking contexts. Deadline for abstracts: 31-May-2019. Conference in London on 7-8-Oct-2019.
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Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, 2016
The chapter looks at how the language of Islamic law and Empire has been re-articulated when rend... more The chapter looks at how the language of Islamic law and Empire has been re-articulated when rendering the text of the 1814 French Charter in Arabic. The author, the kuttāb-then-Azhar-trained Egyptian scholar al-Ṭahṭāwī (1801-1873), heavily employed both while laying the foundations of what became the semiotics of Egyptian law of the 19th century (and beyond).
Al-Ṭahṭāwī’s linguistics was only instrumental to his final goal: rallying his audiences behind ‘his’ idea of hegemonic legal modernity, which he later summarised as manhaj al-sharʿ (rule of law). Through Islamic law, al-Ṭahṭāwī aimed at speaking to his fellow traditional intellectuals (already on the verge of marginalisation), and through Empire at his patron and his circle (not too keen on listening in this area). He also had something to say to French Orientalists: Arabic can be bent to modernity just as easily as French has.
The ‘translation’ of the Charter offers a privileged observation point on al-Ṭahṭāwī’s group and class politics, because it allows us to appreciate what he decided to translate, what to emphasise, what to omit, and what to add.
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Constitutionalism, Human Rights, and Islam after the Arab Spring
(contains a full genealogy of GCC constitutions)
Gulf constitutions are commonly regarded as wea... more (contains a full genealogy of GCC constitutions)
Gulf constitutions are commonly regarded as weak and ineffective documents endorsing authoritarian patterns of governance. However, on closer scrutiny, they tell a slightly different story. Designed to entrench the positions of rulers empowered by the colonial presence, and constrict the province of political participation to its narrowest, constitutions in the Gulf have created a system of (feeble) institutions that in just a few decades of operation have brought about two unforeseen, yet interconnected effects: a retreat of dynasticism and an expansion of political accountability.
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This is an introduction to a special issue of Etudes Arabes collecting six translations of texts ... more This is an introduction to a special issue of Etudes Arabes collecting six translations of texts in Arabic published in Egypt from the early 1800s through the early 2000s. The texts were selected to show the transformation of the semiotics of law in Egypt in that period. The introduction offers some preliminary considerations to such transformations. (in French)
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This article analyzes the constitutional crisis precipitated by the approval of legislation on sh... more This article analyzes the constitutional crisis precipitated by the approval of legislation on sharia-compliant state bonds under the brief enforcement of the 2012 Constitution in Egypt. The crisis confirms the centrality of constitutional design choices for the operation of sharia provisions. In particular, projecting a religious institution with conspicuous political capital in the deliberative process upended the previous arrangement of (almost) complete state control over sharia matters. This stands in sharp contrast to how drafters trivialized these design considerations and focused on the wording of the sharia provisions themselves. Moreover, the poor drafting of these sharia provisions—art. 219 in particular—did not provide for the proper constraints on the institutions involved, as shown in the recommendations on the Ṣukūk Bill put forward by the Body of Senior Scholars of al-Azhar.
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This article looks into the genesis of Madisonian factions (or Elster's interests) in the constit... more This article looks into the genesis of Madisonian factions (or Elster's interests) in the constitution-making process. The North African constitutional transitions offer prime insights into the appetites of political forces to appropriate the key decisions on how to write the constitution, which ultimately leads to undue advantages in the drafting stage. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya show different ways of appropriating that moment and the involvement of different forces. These appropriations, however, all involve limitations to political participation, with various degrees as evidenced in the three experiences. If distortions of constitution-making are deemed inappropriate, then appropriations need to be avoided.
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The Asghate Research Companion to Islamic Law, 2014
Equality before the law is a tremendous, impenetrable field and few would venture to accompany a ... more Equality before the law is a tremendous, impenetrable field and few would venture to accompany a guide through its brambles. By limiting myself in this chapter to jurisprudence (fiqh) and avoiding the crucial test of practice, I hope to come through unscathed. What you will find below is therefore equality before the law as premodern Muslim jurists treated it, regardless of whether that was a wishful construction confined to their works or reality. Due to the space allotted to the topic, elements of gender affecting legal capacity are necessarily covered separately (Chapter 10).
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Imin/nanmin no shitizunshippu (Citizenship for Migrants and Refugees: A Comparative Study of Institution and Practices of Inclusion and Exclusion from Nation-States), Mar 2016
(Non-)Naturalization policies in the GCC member states
Naturalization policies—rather: non-natur... more (Non-)Naturalization policies in the GCC member states
Naturalization policies—rather: non-naturalization policies—in the GCC member states are predicated on the alleged uniqueness of their migration phenomenon. GCC member states base this alleged uniqueness on the “high level of immigration” and its “guest-worker patterns.” The research I’m conducting at ILCAA contributes to challenging this assumed uniqueness, and my presentation will focus on some of the findings on the Gulf (non-)naturalization policies—findings that will be later compiled into a chapter. Policies of civic inclusion and exclusion, I argue, are the real unique element of GCC member states migration and its management strategies.
The paper employs comparative and critical legal analysis to consider both the legislative policies on citizenship in the GCC member states, and their current (non-)naturalization practices. Legislative policies, on the one hand, will be analyzed on the basis of the fundamental conceptualizations of citizenship in the region, and their strategic amendments openly acknowledging exclusionary goals. (Non-)naturalization practices, on the other hand, will provide a wind-tunnel for the implementation of legislative policies and offer insights into the use of legal discourse in the service of restrictive management strategies. The analysis will be based on existing legislation and legal literature for the first section, and naturalization decrees for the second.
My contribution sits at the intersection of law and migrations. The broader horizon of the chapter will be on the one hand conceptualizations and practices of citizenship in the region, and on the other hand governance structures in the GCC member states. While naturalizations are portrayed as almost automatic applications of citizenship legislation when requirements are met, the arbitrary use of naturalizations by political authorities tells a different story. Plunging into the heart of the polity, naturalization strategies are often politically divisive (Lebanon being just the epitome of such divisiveness), but the definition of (looser or stricter) legal requirements in the legislation boosts the conflict during the defining stage, but defuses it in the times of ordinary politics. In the Gulf, naturalization requirements and procedures are set high to allow for the exclusion of unwanted foreign nationals, but also occasionally bent for the inclusion of expectedly loyal supporters (as in the case of “political naturalizations” in Bahrain).
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Law, Religion, Constitution; Freedom of Religion, Equal Treatment, and the Law (W. Cole DURHAM, Jr., Silvio FERRARI, Cristiana CIANITTO, and Donlu THAYER, eds.) Farnham: Ashgate., 2013
Overview of sharīʿah provisions in Constitutions, and their significance in the comparative traje... more Overview of sharīʿah provisions in Constitutions, and their significance in the comparative trajectories of legal transformations.
Content: Introduction -- Constitutional Provisions on Islam -- Constitutional Provisions on Sharīʿah -- Defective Canons of Construction -- The Wider Setting -- The Pre-Modern Tradition -- Modernity and the First Paradigm Shift -- The Second Paradigm Shift -- Outer Divergence and Inner Convergence -- A Dynamic Formula? -- Scenarios.
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Introduction to, and translation (into Italian) of, the first ruling of Egypt's Supreme Constitut... more Introduction to, and translation (into Italian) of, the first ruling of Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court that declared a provision (of Law 1/2000) to be invalid for lack of conformity with the Constitution (art. 2, 9, 12 and 41). First application of the shari'a provision (art. 2) by the SCC.
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Legal provisions on interfaith marriages offer a privileged observation point on the interaction ... more Legal provisions on interfaith marriages offer a privileged observation point on the interaction of different legal systems in a context of migrations, minorities, and law and religion. Even within the Muslim communities in Scotland, predominantly South Asian, multiple and fluid identities compete and seek different arrangements within a legal system that refuses to consider elements of Islamic law as law, or relevant to law. Impediments to marriage by disparity of faith can be a good case in point, and open up the debate on the boundaries of competing definitions of law. -- This paper explores the adaptation and transmigration of Islamic regulations on interfaith marriages among the Muslim communities in Scotland. Islamic impediments to marriage by disparity of faith have somehow guaranteed the religious endogamic principle in Muslim-majority contexts; what happens when borders are crossed and South Asian communities find themselves in a Scottish context? -- In order to follow this adaptation and transmigration, we need to embark on a journey through time and space. I suggest to depart from the single rule on interfaith marriages produced by modernity (I), follow a leisurely meander along the modern/classical divide (II), tour the welcoming highlands of Scots law (III), and observe how our modern rule has taken root in quite a distinct environment (IV), before landing with some super-hybrid final considerations (V).
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Books by Gianluca Parolin
Islamochristiana, 2022
Documenti come quello sulla Fratellanza umana sono diventati un elemento non trascurabile del dia... more Documenti come quello sulla Fratellanza umana sono diventati un elemento non trascurabile del dialogo intra- e inter-religioso con i leader politici e religiosi musulmani a partire dai primi anni 2000. Questa lezione inaugurale dell’anno accademico si propone di attirare l’attenzione di studenti e colleghi impegnati nel dialogo interreligioso sulle modalità fondamentali attraverso cui il significato viene generato e comunicato in que- sti documenti. Prendendo la “cittadinanza” come caso di studio, la lezione esplora (1) l’orizzonte semiotico (giuridico) dei documenti e il suo impatto sulla interpretazione di “cittadinanza”, (2) la traiettoria del concetto di “cittadinanza” nella teoria costituzionale egiziana moderna e contemporanea, e infine (3) le opportunità (e le sfide) della ridefini- zione del concetto nel contesto del dialogo interreligioso.
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Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009
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Papers by Gianluca Parolin
Popular culture tends to be the prominent absent in the narrative of changes in family law, and the workshop intends to reflect on how to build a broader, common narrative where films and television productions can feature as powerful agents of societal practices, alongside legislative interventions and court decisions.
Deadline for abstracts: 15-Mar-2020. Conference in London on 28-29-May-2020
Al-Ṭahṭāwī’s linguistics was only instrumental to his final goal: rallying his audiences behind ‘his’ idea of hegemonic legal modernity, which he later summarised as manhaj al-sharʿ (rule of law). Through Islamic law, al-Ṭahṭāwī aimed at speaking to his fellow traditional intellectuals (already on the verge of marginalisation), and through Empire at his patron and his circle (not too keen on listening in this area). He also had something to say to French Orientalists: Arabic can be bent to modernity just as easily as French has.
The ‘translation’ of the Charter offers a privileged observation point on al-Ṭahṭāwī’s group and class politics, because it allows us to appreciate what he decided to translate, what to emphasise, what to omit, and what to add.
Gulf constitutions are commonly regarded as weak and ineffective documents endorsing authoritarian patterns of governance. However, on closer scrutiny, they tell a slightly different story. Designed to entrench the positions of rulers empowered by the colonial presence, and constrict the province of political participation to its narrowest, constitutions in the Gulf have created a system of (feeble) institutions that in just a few decades of operation have brought about two unforeseen, yet interconnected effects: a retreat of dynasticism and an expansion of political accountability.
Naturalization policies—rather: non-naturalization policies—in the GCC member states are predicated on the alleged uniqueness of their migration phenomenon. GCC member states base this alleged uniqueness on the “high level of immigration” and its “guest-worker patterns.” The research I’m conducting at ILCAA contributes to challenging this assumed uniqueness, and my presentation will focus on some of the findings on the Gulf (non-)naturalization policies—findings that will be later compiled into a chapter. Policies of civic inclusion and exclusion, I argue, are the real unique element of GCC member states migration and its management strategies.
The paper employs comparative and critical legal analysis to consider both the legislative policies on citizenship in the GCC member states, and their current (non-)naturalization practices. Legislative policies, on the one hand, will be analyzed on the basis of the fundamental conceptualizations of citizenship in the region, and their strategic amendments openly acknowledging exclusionary goals. (Non-)naturalization practices, on the other hand, will provide a wind-tunnel for the implementation of legislative policies and offer insights into the use of legal discourse in the service of restrictive management strategies. The analysis will be based on existing legislation and legal literature for the first section, and naturalization decrees for the second.
My contribution sits at the intersection of law and migrations. The broader horizon of the chapter will be on the one hand conceptualizations and practices of citizenship in the region, and on the other hand governance structures in the GCC member states. While naturalizations are portrayed as almost automatic applications of citizenship legislation when requirements are met, the arbitrary use of naturalizations by political authorities tells a different story. Plunging into the heart of the polity, naturalization strategies are often politically divisive (Lebanon being just the epitome of such divisiveness), but the definition of (looser or stricter) legal requirements in the legislation boosts the conflict during the defining stage, but defuses it in the times of ordinary politics. In the Gulf, naturalization requirements and procedures are set high to allow for the exclusion of unwanted foreign nationals, but also occasionally bent for the inclusion of expectedly loyal supporters (as in the case of “political naturalizations” in Bahrain).
Content: Introduction -- Constitutional Provisions on Islam -- Constitutional Provisions on Sharīʿah -- Defective Canons of Construction -- The Wider Setting -- The Pre-Modern Tradition -- Modernity and the First Paradigm Shift -- The Second Paradigm Shift -- Outer Divergence and Inner Convergence -- A Dynamic Formula? -- Scenarios.
Books by Gianluca Parolin
Popular culture tends to be the prominent absent in the narrative of changes in family law, and the workshop intends to reflect on how to build a broader, common narrative where films and television productions can feature as powerful agents of societal practices, alongside legislative interventions and court decisions.
Deadline for abstracts: 15-Mar-2020. Conference in London on 28-29-May-2020
Al-Ṭahṭāwī’s linguistics was only instrumental to his final goal: rallying his audiences behind ‘his’ idea of hegemonic legal modernity, which he later summarised as manhaj al-sharʿ (rule of law). Through Islamic law, al-Ṭahṭāwī aimed at speaking to his fellow traditional intellectuals (already on the verge of marginalisation), and through Empire at his patron and his circle (not too keen on listening in this area). He also had something to say to French Orientalists: Arabic can be bent to modernity just as easily as French has.
The ‘translation’ of the Charter offers a privileged observation point on al-Ṭahṭāwī’s group and class politics, because it allows us to appreciate what he decided to translate, what to emphasise, what to omit, and what to add.
Gulf constitutions are commonly regarded as weak and ineffective documents endorsing authoritarian patterns of governance. However, on closer scrutiny, they tell a slightly different story. Designed to entrench the positions of rulers empowered by the colonial presence, and constrict the province of political participation to its narrowest, constitutions in the Gulf have created a system of (feeble) institutions that in just a few decades of operation have brought about two unforeseen, yet interconnected effects: a retreat of dynasticism and an expansion of political accountability.
Naturalization policies—rather: non-naturalization policies—in the GCC member states are predicated on the alleged uniqueness of their migration phenomenon. GCC member states base this alleged uniqueness on the “high level of immigration” and its “guest-worker patterns.” The research I’m conducting at ILCAA contributes to challenging this assumed uniqueness, and my presentation will focus on some of the findings on the Gulf (non-)naturalization policies—findings that will be later compiled into a chapter. Policies of civic inclusion and exclusion, I argue, are the real unique element of GCC member states migration and its management strategies.
The paper employs comparative and critical legal analysis to consider both the legislative policies on citizenship in the GCC member states, and their current (non-)naturalization practices. Legislative policies, on the one hand, will be analyzed on the basis of the fundamental conceptualizations of citizenship in the region, and their strategic amendments openly acknowledging exclusionary goals. (Non-)naturalization practices, on the other hand, will provide a wind-tunnel for the implementation of legislative policies and offer insights into the use of legal discourse in the service of restrictive management strategies. The analysis will be based on existing legislation and legal literature for the first section, and naturalization decrees for the second.
My contribution sits at the intersection of law and migrations. The broader horizon of the chapter will be on the one hand conceptualizations and practices of citizenship in the region, and on the other hand governance structures in the GCC member states. While naturalizations are portrayed as almost automatic applications of citizenship legislation when requirements are met, the arbitrary use of naturalizations by political authorities tells a different story. Plunging into the heart of the polity, naturalization strategies are often politically divisive (Lebanon being just the epitome of such divisiveness), but the definition of (looser or stricter) legal requirements in the legislation boosts the conflict during the defining stage, but defuses it in the times of ordinary politics. In the Gulf, naturalization requirements and procedures are set high to allow for the exclusion of unwanted foreign nationals, but also occasionally bent for the inclusion of expectedly loyal supporters (as in the case of “political naturalizations” in Bahrain).
Content: Introduction -- Constitutional Provisions on Islam -- Constitutional Provisions on Sharīʿah -- Defective Canons of Construction -- The Wider Setting -- The Pre-Modern Tradition -- Modernity and the First Paradigm Shift -- The Second Paradigm Shift -- Outer Divergence and Inner Convergence -- A Dynamic Formula? -- Scenarios.
Conference hosted by the Governance Programme at AKU-ISMC.