The Personal Law of the Druze Community

Abstract

I948 a Law of Personal Status for the Druze community was promulgated in Lebanon. 1) This comprises 172 articles divided into nineteen chapters, and covers the law of marriage [including dower and maintenance], dissolution of marriage, custody of children, maintenance of relatives, guardianship, the appointment and duties of executors, interdiction, missing persons, paternity, testate and intestate succession and waqf. parts it is tolerably exhaustive, while elsewhere it is sketchy in the extreme: but it expressly provides 2) that In all matters which fall within the competence of the Qadi of the community, and regarding which there is no special provision in this Law, the said Qadi shall apply the provisions of Islamic law according to the HIanafi school and all legislative enactments not inconsistent therewith. This in itself seems strange, since one would expect the Druzes to follow the Isma'ili system of law 3) wherever they have not adopted some rule peculiar to themselves: but the explanation presumably lies in the fact that the community has developed in a predominantly Hanafi environment and even been forced, on occasion, to make a profession of Sunni Islam; while not only did the Ottoman Government consistently sponsor Hanafi law as its state system, but even the Ottoman Provisional