I.B.Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies
Sharia has been a source of misunderstanding and misconception in both the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World sets out to explore the reality of sharia, contextualising its development in the early centuries of Islam and showing how it evolved in line with historical and social circumstances. The authors, Raficq S. Abdulla and Mohamed M. Keshavjee, both British-trained lawyers, argue that sharia and the positive law flowing from it, known as fiqh, have never been an exclusive legal system or a fixed set of beliefs. In addition to tracing the history of sharia, the book offers a critique concerning its status today. Sharia is examined with regard to particular issues that are of paramount importance in the contemporary world, such as human rights; criminal penalties, including those dealing with apostasy, blasphemy and adultery, commercial transactions, and bio-medical ethics, amongst other subjects. The authors show that sharia is a legal system underpinned by ethical principles that are open to change in different circumstances and contexts, notwithstanding the claims for `transcendental permanence' made by Islamists. This book encourages new thinking about the history of sharia and its role in the modern world.

Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World

History

Keshavjee, Mohamed M.

Abdulla, Raficq S.

World

I.B.Tauris

The meanings and contexts of Shari'a are the subject of both curiosity and misunderstanding by non-Muslims. Shari'a is sometimes crudely characterised by outsiders as a punitive legal system operating broadly outside, and separate from, national laws and customs. This groundbreaking book shows that Shari'a and its 'fiqh' (laws set forward by various Islamic legal schools) comprise a far more nuanced matrix of interpretations than is often assumed to be the case. Far from being monolithic or impervious to change from without, Muslim legal tradition has - since its beginnings in the early Islamic period - placed an emphasis on equity and non-adversarial conflict-resolution. Mohamed Keshavjee examines both Sunni and Shi'a applications of Islamic law, demonstrating how political, cultural and other factors have influenced the practice of fiqh and Shari'a in the West. Exploring in particular the modern development of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), the author shows that this process can revitalise some of the essential principles that underlie Muslim teachings and jurispudence, delivering not only formal remedies but also perceived justice, even to non-Muslims.

Islam, Sharia and Alternative Dispute Resolution: Mechanisms for Legal Redress in the Muslim Community (Library of Islamic Law)

Rules & Procedures

Through the story of one family, this book captures the history and experiences of the South African Indian pioneers from 1894, when an Ismaili, Jivan Keshavjee, left Kathiawad (Gujarat) and arrived in South Africa, to 1994, when the country attained its multiparty democracy following the release of Nelson Mandela. Keshavjee describes vividly, with a dash of humour and pathos, life in urban South Africa under apartheid and the long struggles for human rights. Using historical sources and numerous remembered anecdotes, he highlights Mahatma Gandhi?s early work, which led to the formulation of Satyagraha (Passive Resistance), and Gandhi?s interactions with the Indian families that are remembered to this day. The book ends by describing the lives of the exiles in independent Kenya and Uganda?where they were forced out by Amin?and their arrival in Europe and North America. With 60 historical photographs, a family tree, and a facsimile of Mahatma Gandhi?s letter to Velshi Keshavjee in 1938, this unique account is not only a multigenerational family history but also a history of the Asians of Africa over a hundred years. With a Foreword by Ahmed Kathrada, leading anti-apartheid activist in South Africa.

Into that Heaven of Freedom: The impact of apartheid on an Indian family's diasporic history

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Mawenzi House Publishers Ltd.

Diasporic Distractions

Kuala Lumpur : Silverfish Pro

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Books by Keshavjee, Mohamed M.