Colonialism and Islamic Law

Quote as: Masud, Khalid, Armando Salvatore, and Martin van Bruinessen (eds). 2009. Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. This textbook is a pioneering study providing an introduction to and overview of the debates and questions that have emerged regarding Islam and modernity. Key issues are selected to give readers an understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The various manifestations of modernity in Muslim life discussed include social change and the transformation of political and religious institutions, gender politics, changing legal regimes, devotional practices and forms of religious association, shifts in religious authority, and modern developments in Muslim religious thought.

Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, 2006

2011

This comprehensive collection examines a broad spectrum of Islamic governance during colonial and postcolonial eras. The book pays special attention to the ongoing battles over the codification of Islamic education, religious authority, law and practice while outlining the similarities and differences in British, French and Portuguese colonial rule in Islamic regions. Using a shared conceptual framework the contributors to this volume analyze the nature of regulation in different historical periods and geographical areas. From Africa and the ...

The encounter of the Muslim community with western modernity ushered in a new course of events involving multidimensional interactions and conflicts in economic, political, social and cultural areas. As a result of this eventful encounter, three different major reactions came about among Muslims towards modernity: the first one is modernism which aims at the western-type modernization and cracks a door to secularism. The second one was a movement which, harboring fundamentalist and reformist ideas, rejected modernity entirely and viewed the backwardness vis-à-vis the West in Muslims' inadequate understanding of Islam. The third one was the (neo-) traditionalist approach. This study offers an account of the encounter with a little background and also an analysis of all three responses that Muslims held towards modernity. It finally presents whether or not these approaches brings in anything new in terms of Muslim sectarianism. Öz Modernite ve İslam Toplumunun Buna Tepkisinde Farklılaşması: Modern, Islahçı ve Gelenekçi Tavırların Ortaya Konulması İslam toplumunun Batı Modernizmi ile karşılaşması ekonomik, politik, sosyal ve kültürel zeminlerde çok boyutlu bir etkileşim ve çatışma sürecini beraberinde getirdi. Bu karşılaşmada Müslümanlar arasından üç farklı tepki ortaya çıktı: İlki Batı tipi bir modernleşmeyi hedefleyen ve bu çerçevede sekülerleşmeye kapı açan yaklaşımdı. İkincisi, modernleşmeye toptan karşı çıkan ve Batı karşısındaki geri kalmışlığı İslam'ı yeterince yaşayamamakta gören köktenci ve ıslahçı yaklaşımdı. Üçüncüsü ise (yeni-) gelenekçi yaklaşımdı. Bu makalede İslam toplumunun Batı modernizmi ile karşılaşma süreci ve bunun arkaplanı ele alınmış, bu çerçevede İslam toplumunda oluşan üç farklı tutum tahlil edilmiştir. Bu çalışma, ayrıca, bahsedilen eğilimlerin İslam mezhepçiliği açısından yeni olarak ne ortaya koyduklarını tartışmaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Modernite, Modern, Islahçı, Gelenekçi.

This study analyses the treatment of Islamic law (Fiqh) under the English legal system by looking into the developments in waqf law in British India. It has the dual objective of analysing the impact of the English legal system upon Islamic law, and determining the role of various actors in this process. It argues that waqf law was transformed in order to fit into the state structure. The colonial state used the techniques of translation, adjudication, legislation and teaching in order to transform Islamic law. Adjudication was preferred over legislative codification as a mode of governance and rule making because of its flexibility. The translation of classical Islamic legal texts, the Hidāya and certain parts of the Fatāwā al-‘Ālamgīriyya, relieved English judges of the need for a reliance on local legal advisors. However, Muslim lawyers, judges, legal commentators, and some religious scholars (‘ulamā’) simultaneously collaborated and negotiated with, and resisted colonial administrators in the process of legal transformation. As adjudication was a preferred mode of transformation, legal commentaries played a crucial role in legal developments. A majority of legal commentators were Muslims, such as Ameer Ali, Abdur Rahim and Faiz Tyabji. They used their legal treatises to resist any colonial intervention in Islamic law. Although English educated Muslims replaced ‘ulamā’ as cultural intermediaries between the state and society, this did not eliminate the role of ‘ulamā’ as the custodians of Islamic law. They established closer links with society and issued fatāwā (legal opinions) on legal issues. Fatāwā were sought regarding every important aspect of waqf law, from the validity of family awqāf to the management of awqāf and the permissibility of awqāf of movables such as shares of companies. ‘Ulamā’ also lobbied for the enforcement of Islamic law in order to promote women’s rights of inheritance and to get a divorce. This study finds that Anglo-Muhammadan law was a product of interaction between various sections of Muslim society and colonial administrators. It reflected the socio-political context of colonial India and the process of negotiations between divergent interest holders. Despite replacing the traditional institutional structure, the overall legal system became more inclusive. It could interact with various stakeholders and represent them in the process of law making in order to respond to social change.

Colonial Exchanges: Political Theory and the Agency of the Colonized, 2017

This chapter discusses the political thought of the Egyptian jurist Qāsim Amīn (1863–1908) in a global key. It argues that central to understanding colonized thought, as well as political thought from the margins in general, are the shifts entailed by speaking to different and multiple audiences around the globe, as well as these audiences’ own responses to such shifts. Colonized thinkers such as Amīn adapted their claims to different readers and populations, and each of these audiences responded to these texts and, sometimes, to Amīn’s reception elsewhere. These two layers of audience and reception frame this chapter. It argues against both the mistaken view of Qāsim Amīn as the “father of Arab feminism” and the reduction of his thought to the mere repetition of missionary and colonial discourse. In the first half, the chapter tracks shifts across his major works on Islam and women, specifically in his discussions of Europeans, national extinction, and the possibility of progress. His strategic use of Muslim and European sources shifted depending on his audience and their responses. In the second half, the chapter shows that Amīn’s strategies of selectively calibrating his speech to different audiences did not succeed. Just as he was cited by European missionaries and liberals as an example of a Muslim reformer, Arab intellectuals accused him of posturing for Europeans, including in the discrepancies between his French and his Arab writings; and in turn, each group cited the other’s own reception of Amīn’s modernist thought as evidence for their respective position. Amīn’s thought and its multiple and intersecting layers of reception thus offer an important example of how colonized political thought and the agency of the colonized intellectual must be theorized in relation not only to the weapons of the weak, but to the shields and daggers of colonial orientalism.

Schmitt, Qutb, and Orientalism; or, Occidentalism as Political Strategy.

Gender & History, 2005