Impact of Islamic Law on Commercial Sale Contracts – A Private International Law Dimension in Europe

Abstract

The steady rise in Islamic finance has necessarily entailed a corresponding rise in transnational1 commerce which is guided by Islamic law and practice. There is much research literature on the content and scope of Islamic law with respect to transnational commerce.2 The object of this article however is not to engage with the scholarly debate as to what Islamic law says about how transnational commerce is carried on but to question how European transnational sales law copes with the direct and indirect effect of Islamic law. The research question is essentially one that relates to how an established European or Western private international law regime should accommodate both legally and practically the intervention of Islamic law. Although the Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) is not a private international law instrument, it represents a harmonised system of law for its signatories. It is intended thus to be a substitute for private international law where cross-border sale transactions are concerned. It would therefore be a significant lapse not to examine in this study the implications for the CISG and its application in European countries where there is an Islamic element in the sale relationship.