Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law

Rudolph Peters is Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Peri Bearman is Associate Director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program (retired), Harvard Law School, USA.

• 1. Introduction: The Nature of the Sharia Part I: The Historical Islamic Law 2. The Origins of the Sharia 3. The Divine Sources 4. The Schools of Law 5. Deriving Rules of Law 6. The Judge and the Mufti 7. State and Sharia 8. Qanun and Sharia Part II: Substantive Islamic Law 9. Equality before the Law 10. Gender Relations 11. Socio-Economic Justice 12. Public Order 13. Constitutional Authority 14. War and Peace Part III: Islamic Law through the Prism of the Modern State 15. Sharia and the Colonial State 16. Sharia and the Nation State 17. The Re-Islamization of Legal Systems Part IV: Present-Day Discussions about Sharia 18. Sharia and Finance 19. Sharia and the Muslim Diaspora 20. Sharia and Modernity 21. Sharia and Medical Ethics 22. Epilogue: The Normative Relevance of Sharia in the Modern Context

’Our understanding of the nature, function and development of Islamic law has greatly increased and improved in recent decades. Building on their deep knowledge of the field, Peters and Bearman have conceived and collected an excellent book: comprehensive in its treatment without getting lost in details, incisive in the perspectives it provides without falling into easy discrediting of past research, stimulating in both its positive evaluations and its criticisms, and more importantly, paving the way to the future by the careful and balanced assessment of where we stand.’ Maribel Fierro, Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Spain ’Any student of Islamic law - past, present, or future - will want to keep this lucid, authoritative, and comprehensive Research Companion close at hand.’ David S. Powers, Cornell University, USA ’This is currently the most up-to-date survey of Islamic law available. The authors are all knowledgeable and take pains to cover their subject clearly and thoroughly. While the coverage is thorough, what is most useful is the full engagement with current scholarship. The reader will learn a great deal about both Islamic law and its study from this helpful, lucid, and well-conceived book.’ A. Kevin Reinhart, Dartmouth College, USA