Egyptian Court Research Articles

Islam and Public Law: Classical and Contemporary Studies

Part 1 Classical perspectives: consultation and the political process in the Islamic Middle East of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries legal literature and problem of change - the case of Egypt appellate review of judicial independence in Islamic law the law and the Mufti - evidence from 15th-century Morocco. Part 2 Contemporary dimensions: the role of 'urf in shaping the traditional Islamic city Islamic law and state legislation on religious conversion in India Islam and public law in Malaysia - some reflections in the aftermath of Susie Teoh's case Majlis al-Dawla - the administrative courts of Egypt and administrative law the jurisprudence of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court contemporary reinterpretations of Islamic law.

Egyptian court overturns ban on genital mutilation by doctors

Egyptian court overturns ban on genital mutilation by doctors

Submitting Faith to Judicial Scrutiny Through the Family Trial: The “Abû Zayd Case”

In 1993, a Cairo-based group of lawyers brought an action in the Giza Court of First Instance [Mahkamat al-Jiza al-Ibtida'iyya] demanding the dissolution of the marriage of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and Ibtihal Yfnis. AbCu Zayd, at the time assistant professor of Islamic studies and literature at Cairo University, has authored several books and numerous articles on Qur'anic interpretation and other religious issues. His modernist ideas, in particular his application of the methods of textual analysis to religious texts, have prompted the fierce criticism of both the religious establishment and Islamists. The plaintiffs argued that the writings of Abfu Zayd, who considers himself a faithful Muslim, were heretical and that he, therefore, was an apostate. Under Islamic law the marriage of an apostate to a Muslim woman is void. The plaintiffs claimed that it was the duty of every Muslim to enforce the dissolution of a marital union of that kind. In a ruling dated 27 January 1994, the Court of First Instance dismissed the action on the grounds that the plaintiffs-being a third party-were not entitled to the action. The plaintiffs appealed, and in a ruling dated 14 June 1995 the Cairo Court of Appeals [Mahkamat Isti'naf al-Qahira] reversed the ruling of the Court of First Instance. The Court of Appeals held that Abu Zayd was an apostate and that his marriage must therefore be dissolved. This time the defendants and the public prosecutor [al-Niyaba al'Amma] appealed. However, in a ruling dated 5 August 1996 the Egyptian Court of Cassation [Mahkamat al-Naqd al-Misriyya], the

Political Relativity in a Late Nineteenth Century Law Treatise: The Kitâb Usûl al Qawânîn of Muhammad Rafat

Recent articles dealing with the history of Cairo University's original Khedivial Law School have raised several broad questions concerning modern legal professionalism and the emergence of nationalist political consciousness in Egypt during the 1890s.1 One of these involves possible ways in which traditional concepts of Islamic law may have continued to influence both the work and attitudes of students who became lawyers in officially secularized ahliyyah courts around the turn of the century. In fact, although one reads numerous accounts of eventual attempts to insert shariatic spirit into Egypt's famous National Civil Code of 1949, few historians suggest paths by which modern legalists may have come to share the responsibility of the ulama to interpret and preserve Islamic values in Egyptian court disputes. Perhaps some observers assumed that Dr. Abdul Razzaq al Sanhuri's scholarly synthesis of general Islamic and Western legal concepts in the new code sealed seventy-five years of evolutionary coexistence between separate but equal Shariatic, Mahdkim Ahliyyah, and mixed {viz., international capitulatory) jurisdictions.2 Historians know, however, that the jurisdictional dissection of Egypt which occurred during the nineteenth century sparked quite bitter nationalist resentment by many eventual lawyer-politicians, including Mustafa Kamil and Sa'd Zaghlul.3 Moreover, politically less active lawyers like Qasim Amin and Sa'd's brother Ahmad Fathi Zaghlul wove a concern over clashes between Islamic values and Western-inspired legal structures into significant literary landmarks of their generation. Numerous authors have already noted that many such prominent personalities pursued studies at the Khedivial Law School and practiced law in the Ahliyyah Native courts during the 1890s. Is it also possible that they (and, of course, a far greater number of lesser-known contemporaries) gained consciousness in that particular educational environment of their profession's rather unique opportunity to comment publicly on the social value of Islamic traditions which

Decline and Fall of Pompey the Great

Although the last phase of Republican Rome is so familiar to us, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus remains a figure rather than a man. His was the statue beneath which the murdered Caesar fell, and he is still for most of us the figure in the background: Shakespeare passed him by. His vast fame has left the man himself remote.It was his tragedy that he could not read the writing on the wall. It was partly clouded for him, as all things gradually became clouded, by the deepening shadow of his own portentous greatness. With his solid abilities, too, he had not a streak of genius or political insight. History can show few worse statesmen. He became the chief agent of the doomed Republic without realizing that it was doomed, and lived quite uninspired by that republican idea which animated men so different as Cicero and the younger Cato.If he had not been outclassed, and defeated in battle, and finally eclipsed, by Julius Caesar, he could have lived in history as the Roman Empire's mightiest architect. He claimed with some reason to have subdued three continents. If not a great general, he was certainly a very good one, and in his younger days he could always get the best out of his soldiers. He was, above all, a good organizer. His campaign against the Mediterranean pirates, whom he swept from the seas in three months, was an unqualified triumph.He was stabbed to death at Pelusium by hangers-on of the Egyptian court 2,000 years ago on 29 September.

Recent Egyptian Prize Court Cases

Recent Egyptian Prize Court Cases

Reviews

Mesopotamia, 1917–19: A Clash of Loyalties. By Sir Arnold Wilson. Oxford University Press. The Indian Mutiny in Perspective. By Lieut‐General Sir George MacMunn, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., D.S.O. 9"×5½>”. Pp. xii+276. Illustration and maps. London: Bell. 1931. The Indian Civil Service: 1601–1930. By L. S. S. O'Malley, C.I.E. With a Foreword by the Right Hon. the Marquess of Zetland, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E. 8½>"×5¾>”. Pp.xiv+310. London: John Murray. 12s. net. New Schools for Young India. By W. J. McKee. 9½>"×6¼>”. Pp. xxii+435. Illustrations. North Carolina Press, U.S.A. India Insistent. By Sir Harcourt Butler, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., D.C.L. 7¾>"×5”. Pp. viii+117. Heinemann. 3s. 6d. A Digest of the Evidence and Report of the Indian “Age of Consent” Committee. Vol.II. By Katherine Mayo. 8¾>"×5½>”. Pp.262. Cape. 7s. 6d. Indien Kämpft! By Walter Bosshard. 8½>"×5¾>”. Pp. xii+290. 68 illustrations. 1 sketch map showing the author's route. Stuttgart: Strecker und Schroder. 1931. An Introduction to the Sociology of Islam. By Reuben Levy, M.A. Vol. I. Pp. x+410. London : Williams and Norgate (for the Herbert Spencer trustees). £1 1s. In the Arabian Desert. Selected by Katherine McGiffert Wright from the works of Alois Musil. 9"×5¾>”. Pp. xiv+339. Illustrations and map. Jonathan Cape. 18s. Passages from “Arabia Deserta.” By Charles Doughty. Selected by E. Garnett. 8¼>“×5¾>”. Pp. 320; map. London: Cape. 1931. 4s. 6d. Mustapha Kemal: Between Europe and Asia. By Dagobert von Mikusch. Translated by John Linton. London : William Heinemann, Ltd. 1931. 12s. 6d. Facets of the Chinese Question. By E. Manico Gull. 9"×5¾>”. Pp. xxi+192. With illustrations and maps. London: Ernest Benn, Ltd. 1931. 10. 6d. net. Through the Dragon's Eyes. By L. C. Arlington. Pp. lvii+348, with illustrations, many in colour, and a map. London : Constable and Co. Price 21s. net. The Travels of an Alchemist: Being the Journey of the Taoist Ch'iu Ch'ang‐ch'un from China to the Hindukush, at the Summons of Ghingiz Khan. Recorded by his Disciple, Li Chih‐ch'ang. Translated, with an Introduction, by Arthur Waley. Issued in the Broadway Travellers’ Series, which is edited by Sir E. Denison Ross and Eileen Power. 8¾>“×5½>”. Pp. xi+166. Map. London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., Broadway House, Carter Lane. 1931. Price 10s. 6d. The Report of the Commission to determine the Rights and Claims of Moslems and Jews in connection with the Western or Wailing Wall. Palestine. Department of Education, Annual Report, 1929–1930. The Egyptian Enigma, 1890–1928. By J. E. Marshall, late Judge in the Egyptian Court of Appeal. Pp. xiii+342. 8¾>"×5¾>”. John Murray. Travels in India, Ceylon and Borneo. By Captain Basil Hall, R.N., F.R.S. (The Broadway Travellers Series.) 9"×5¾>” Pp. 272. Illustrations. Eoutledge. 1931. 10s. 6d. The Travels of John Sanderson in the Levant, 1584–1602. Second Series, LXVII. London : Hakluyt Society. 1931. Troublous Times: Experiences in Bolshevik Russia and Turkestan. By Captain A. H. Brun, Danish K.F.A. Pp. vii+238, with twenty‐seven illustrations. The Claims of the Armenians: Friends of Armenia. Politicians, Financiers, and Currency. By Sir John O. Miller, K.C.S.I., Hon. LL.D (Aber.). London : P. S. King and Son, Ltd. 2s. 6d. net. India in Bondage. By Jabez T. Sunderland, M.A., D.D. New York: Lewis Copeland Company. The Case for India. By Will Durant. New York: Simon and Schuster.