Recasting Islamic Law: Religion and the Nation State in Egyptian Constitution Making By Rachel M. Scott

Abstract

The question of how elements of Islamic law are incorporated and codified in the positive laws of modern Muslim-majority states has received significant scholarly attention. What most of the different strands of scholarship share is the notion that the creation of modern states has caused a significant rupture in the legal traditions of Muslim-majority societies. One trend in scholarship assumes an inherent dichotomy between a secular state and an Islamic state. The former follows secular legal codes, often adopting European legal traditions, and seeks to minimize the influence of Islamic law on the country’s legal culture by either abandoning it entirely or relegating it to questions of so-called personal status law pertaining to issues of marriage, divorce and inheritance. An Islamic state, on the contrary, seeks to revive pre-modern elements of Islamic law and turns it into the primary source of legislation. Another more recent trend in academic scholarship suggests...