Out with the University of Chicago Press is
The
Politics of Islamic Law: Local Elites, Colonial Authority, and the Making of the
Muslim State by Iza Hussin, University of Cambridge. From the
publisher:
In The Politics of Islamic Law, Iza Hussin compares India, Malaya, and Egypt during the British colonial period in order to trace the making and transformation of the contemporary category of "Islamic law." She demonstrates that not only is Islamic law not the shari’ah, its present institutional forms, substantive content, symbolic vocabulary, and relationship to state and society—in short, its politics—are built upon foundations laid during the colonial encounter.
Drawing on extensive archival work in English, Arabic, and Malay—from court records to colonial and local papers to private letters and visual material—Hussin offers a view of politics in the colonial period as an iterative series of negotiations between local and colonial powers in multiple locations. She shows how this resulted in a paradox, centralizing Islamic law at the same time that it limited its reach to family and ritual matters, and produced a transformation in the Muslim state, providing the frame within which Islam is articulated today, setting the agenda for ongoing legislation and policy, and defining the limits of change. Combining a genealogy of law with a political analysis of its institutional dynamics, this book offers an up-close look at the ways in which global transformations are realized at the local level.
Praise for the book:
“The Politics of
Islamic Law takes a very fresh approach on understanding the roots of
modern Islamic laws. It is a very well-researched and well-argued work. This
book is a must-read for the students and experts of Islamic law. Since Hussin
has traced the roots of Islamic laws in the colonial state and polices instead
of Islamic theology and history, it may raise controversies. However, it is not
possible to ignore this scholarly work.” –Washington
Book Review
“This book is the work of a gifted scholar
with the capacity to work painstakingly through a mass of detail, do
comparative work in multiple locations, and draw significant theoretical
conclusions. Detailing a genealogy of Islamic law and ‘mixed’ Islamic legal
regimes, Hussin offers a sophisticated analysis that places these in the
context of colonization and outlines the ways they have been shaped by an
ongoing engagement between colonial powers and local elites.” –Mahmood Mamdani
“The Politics of Islamic Law is a
remarkable book, both for its breadth and lucidity. The archive
that Hussin plumbs is vast (Malaya, India, Egypt) and her analysis
sharp. In clear prose she shows the various ways in which British colonial
rule transformed Islamic law to fit the requirements of the modern state. This
is an important contribution that unsettles a number of assumptions about
Islamic law and its modern history.” –Saba Mahmood
More information is available here.
