Arabic Studies Commons^™

Islam, Democracy, And The Leadership Role Of Women In Government, Leea Collard

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between Islam, democratic government, and the governmental leadership of women in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT). In order to understand female leadership in this region, the compatibility between Islam and democracy is analyzed. This occurs through the examination of Sharia Law and democratic principles within Islam. Furthermore, a statistical analysis of the successes of democracies in the region will be presented. Each nation will be categorized by the constitutional provisions entrusted to its female citizens. Thus, this thesis will present the legality of the political participation of women in each of the …

Persistence Of Jewish-Muslim Reconciliatory Activism In The Face Of Threats And “Terrorism” (Real And Perceived) From All Sides, Micah B.D.C. Naziri

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation concerns how Jewish-Muslim and Israel-Palestine grassroots activism can persist in the face of threats to the safety, freedom, lives, or even simply the income and employment of those engaged in acts of sustained resistance. At the heart of the study are the experiences of participants in the Hashlamah Project, an inter-religious collaboration project, involving Jews and Muslims. Across chapters and even nations, chapters of this organization faced similar threats and found universally-applicable solutions emerging for confronting those threats and persisting in the face of them. This raised the question of whether revolutionaries and activists in general can persevere …

'Lone Wolf' Terrorism And The Classical Jihad: On The Contingencies Of Violent Islamic Extremism, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

It is nearly impossible to describe Muslim expansionism in the centuries following the death of the Prophet Muhammad - broadly undertaken in service of the Islamic doctrine of jihad - as being somehow compatible with modern norms of international relations, including self-determination and noninterference in the affairs of other states. To detractors, this seems to suggest a certain tension in modern Muslim thought that jihadist movements have been able to exploit. Modern Muslim intellectuals, that is, are forced to somehow reconcile an expansionist past, which was not only tolerated by early jurists interpreting Islam’s sacred texts but indeed exhorted by …

Sex And The Shari’A: Defining Gender Norms And Sexual Deviancy In Shi’I Islam, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

This paper demonstrates that modern authoritative jurists working within the Shi’i tradition have developed their rules respecting sex regulation to serve three primary commitments. The first of these is that there is an intense and near debilitating desire on the part of human beings generally, though mostly men, for a great deal of sex. This desire must be satisfied, but it also must be tightly controlled. This is because of the second commitment, which is that excessive licentiousness is a form of secular distraction from a believer’s central obligation to worship God. Finally, and perhaps the most interesting, is the …

Repugnancy In The Arab World, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

“Repugnancy clauses” -- those constitutional provisions that, in language that varies from nation to nation, require legislation to conform to some core conception of Islam -- are all the rage these days. This clause, a relatively recent addition to many modern constitutions, has emerged as a central focus of academic writing on Muslim state constitutions generally, and on Arab constitutions in particular. Much of the attention it has received has been enlightening and erudite. Yet one aspect of the broader repugnancy discourse that deserves some attention is an important, often de facto, temporal limitation on the effect of the clause. …

Arab Spring, Libyan Liberation And The Externally Imposed Democratic Revolution, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

Richard Albert wants to know what happened to our commitment to the democratic revolution, and I share his frustrations and his befuddlement. Indeed, I might phrase the question more broadly than he has, and ask precisely what has become of our commitment to democratic rule, however brought about. Contemporary events in the Arab world leave one more confused than ever as to America’s understanding of its own role in supporting democratic orders. This is a matter that deserves more attention than it has been receiving. I consider Professor Albert’s contribution important, and helpful in advancing the discussion in a positive …

Notes In Defense Of The Iraq Constitution, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

This paper is a defense of sorts of the Iraqi constitution, arguing that the language used in it was wisely designed to allow some level of flexibility, such that highly divided political forces could find incremental solutions to the deep rooted sources of division that have plagued Iraqi society since its inception. That Iraq has found itself in such dreadful political circumstances since constitutional ratification is therefore not a function of the open ended constitutional bargain, but rather of the failure of Iraqi legal and political elites to make use of the space that the constitution provided them to develop …

Ornamental Repugnancy: Identitarian Islam And The Iraqi Constitution, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

Nearly six years after the enactment of Iraq’s final constitution, the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq has yet to render a single ruling respecting the conformity of any law to the “settled rulings of Islam” despite being empowered to do precisely that under Article 2 of the Iraqi Constitution. This so-called repugnancy clause is swiftly devolving from a matter that was of some importance during constitutional negotiations into one that is more symbolic than real – an assertion of identity, primarily of the Islamic variety (though when combined with Article 92, to some extent of the Shi’i Islamic variety) – …

The Death Of Islamic Law, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

That lawmaking in many modern Muslim nation states appears to give rather short shrift to shari’a, seemingly ignoring it in all areas save the law of the family and replacing it elsewhere with European transplanted law, has been discussed. That the Muslim world is replete with political institutions and leaders that seek a greater role than this for the shari’a in the affairs of the state is obvious to anyone even faintly familiar with the region.

However, left undiscussed is the fact that the Islamist, who derives his authority precisely on the basis of returning sovereignty to God in all …

Baghdad Booksellers, Basra Carpet Merchants, And The Law Of God And Man: Legal Pluralism And The Contemporary Muslim Experience, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

There is a crisis in our law schools in the study of Islamic law and the law of the Muslim polities. The current approaches either focus exclusively on national codes to the derogation of other vitally important influences on the legal order, most importantly the body of norms and rules derived from Islamic foundational texts known as the shari'a, or they regard as secondary, and at times irrelevant, the actual legal order of the societies in favor of an academic construction of the theories of medieval Muslim jurists. Neither of these approaches reflects with a necessary degree of accuracy the …

The Muezzin's Call And The Dow Jones Bell: On The Necessity Of Realism In The Study Of Islamic Law, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

The central flaw in the current approach to shari'a in the American legal academy is the reliance on the false assumption that contemporary Islamic rules are derived from classical doctrine. This has led both admirers and detractors of the manner in which shari'a is studied to focus their energies on obsolete medieval rules that bear no relationship to the manner in which modern Muslims approach shari'a. The reality is that given the structural pluralism of the rules of the classical era, there is no sensible way that modern rules could be derived from classical doctrine, either in letter or in …

You Say You Want A Revolution: Interpretive Communities And The Origins Of Islamic Finance, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

Despite its currently conservative character, the modern practice of Islamic finance lies on a bedrock of social, cultural and economic revolution. Examination of these revolutionary origins and their attendant jurisprudential implications reveal much about the schizophrenia plaguing Islamic finance today, of a largely formalist practice repeating the functional aims of the early revolutionaries and falsely understood by substantial portions of the wider Muslim community to be achieving such aims. Though the revolution has not come to pass, some of the comparatively radical functional approaches conceived in the context of the anticipated upheaval, and in particular those of the Iraqi Shi'i …

Muhammad's Social Justice Or Muslim Cant?: Langdellianism And The Failures Of Islamic Finance, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

Though it is advertised and promoted as the bulwark of an alternative economic system based on populist Muslim notions of social justice and fairness, Islamic finance as a practice has failed to meet these objectives. The causes of that failure and the question of whether alternative approaches are possible are the subject of this Article.

The failure of Islamic finance to provide that which it promotes is the direct consequence of the application of an Islamic logic driven interpretive system through which rules are derived, which its adherents claim was formalized and systematized by the early jurist Muhammad Ibn Idris …