Muslim-majority States Research Articles

Navigating Between National Unity and Political Expediency: The Federal Government’s Response to Substate Identity Policy in Nigeria and Canada

What factors shape the federal or national governments’ responses to substate identity policies within deeply diverse federal systems? This article answers this question by analysing the role of the President or Prime Minister as ‘bearers’ of national unity, when confronted with (exclusivist) identity policies that may threaten the inclusion of all citizens, in particular minorities residing in jurisdictions dominated by a dominant (ethnocultural, linguistic or religious) group. The empirical evidence draws on the experiences of Canada and Nigeria, focusing in particular on the tension over secularism and the Muslim veil in Québec public institutions, and the adoption of Sharia by twelve Muslim-majority states in Nigeria. The paper demonstrates that while the need to uphold cultural diversity could explain the federal government’s responses to the identity policies implemented in these regions, the primary driver of the responses was the president and prime minister’s political goal of re-election and retaining power. The paper contributes to the literature by stressing the similarities in the political reflexes and strategies utilized by political actors in managing the tension between the constitutional principles of self-rule and shared rule in two federations that are often thought to be so different and, hence, incomparable.

Ladders and ropes: Israeli–Turkish relations 2010–20

ABSTRACT While Turkey was the first Muslim majority state to recognise Israel, bilateral relations underwent many ups and downs in subsequent decades, peaking in the 1990s and experiencing a sharp deterioration since the mid-2000s that culminated in the Mavi Marmara flotilla crisis of 2010. This article examines Turkish-Israeli relations in the 2010s, known as the ‘lost decade’, with a special emphasis on whether this period constitutes a continuation of the declining relations or a new link in the relations between the two states. Indeed, the hesitant reconciliation process that began in March 2022 with the return of ambassadors and a series of fence-mending steps was brought to an abrupt end in October 2023 as Ankara threw its full weight behind Hamas in its war against Israel.

Millet İnşa Etme Tasavvuru Olarak Ümmet Anlayışının Kapsayıcılığı

Objectivist or subjectivist methods would be utilised in a nation-building process. The objectivist method seeks to shape a national identity based on linguistic, ethnic or religious unity among those individuals forming the nation concerned. Shaping the identity constructed upon such unity is not asked by the subjectivist method. This method recognises linguistic, ethnic or religious diversity as the enrichment of the national identity. It stimulates the individuals to show loyalty to their common history and to embrace common future goals while trying to shape their national identity underscoring the significance of solidarity and emotional unity. Ummah is generally regarded as a concept benefiting from the objectivist method and aimed at a nation-building process that is based on religious unity. The concept of ummah would indeed have concrete objectivist features in a methodological manner; however, it is also possible to take into account the subjectivist method in an ummah-oriented process. This article examines those constitutions entered into force in various Muslim-majority states in the 2000s and afterwards and answers which methods are used in their nation-building processes. According to the article, seven states – Bahrain, Palestine, Qatar, the Comoros Union, the Maldives, Syria and Tunisia – draw on the objectivist method whilst Sudan utilises its subjectivist counterpart. The other states scrutinised in this study – Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, Morocco, Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Niger, Senegal, Somalia and Turkmenistan – use a hybrid formula constructed on both objectivist and subjectivist cornerstones. All results reached via a normative analysis of constitutional law are also examined from a perspective of Islamic law, ultimately arguing that the concept of ummah would be acknowledged as a model of inclusive nation.

CPEC: Challenges, Opportunities and Socio-Economic Impact on The Muslim World

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a flagship project within China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It stands as a corridor encompassing road, railway and maritime infrastructure development, primarily aimed at fostering economic growth. This vast network extends its reach across the Asian continent, with Pakistan at its center, while also involving other Muslim-majority nations, including Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and several Central Asian States. The key promise of CPEC lies in its potential to revitalize the economies of developing countries at large and Muslim-majority nations in particular. The allure of CPEC for participating nations is evident, especially for those facing financial constraints and a dire need for infrastructure development, as it presents a lifeline for economic progress. However, beneath the surface of economic opportunity, there loom socio-economic challenges that warrant careful consideration. These challenges have the potential to impact the relationships between Muslim-majority countries and the Western world, with a specific focus on the Middle Eastern countries. It is within this complex and dynamic context that this research article seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis. The article intends to shed light on two fundamental aspects: firstly, it aims to gauge the willingness of Muslim-majority countries to become integral parts of the CPEC project, evaluating the extent to which they embrace this economic endeavor. Secondly, the research delves into China's role in the region by examining how its economic support and infrastructural development initiatives influence Muslim-majority states. This examination is critical for understanding the opportunities and challenges that the CPEC project presents to the Muslim world and its relationships with the West, especially Middle Eastern nations.

Prevailing Legacy of the Khulāfa-e-Rāshidīn: Their enduring Influence on Present Age Islamic Governance

This study investigates the ongoing effect of the Rashidun Caliphs' (Khulafa-e-Rashideen) leadership methods on contemporary Muslim monarchs. In Islamic philosophy, the leadership of the Rashidun Caliphs, particularly Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan, and Ali ibn Abi Talib, constituted an idealized type of government. Their concepts of consultation (Shura), fairness (Adl), stewardship (Khilafa), Quranic teaching preservation, and social welfare have had a significant influence on modern Islamic governance. The notion of Shura is profoundly established in current Islamic constitutions, supporting collective decision-making and shared responsibility, according to this study. The devotion to Adl is reflected in contemporary Islamic legal systems, which promote fairness, equity, and accountability, including Zakat collecting and distribution methods. The Khilafa idea may be seen in the leadership styles of many current Muslim leaders who prioritize the welfare and development of their constituency. Furthermore, the emphasis on maintaining and spreading Quranic teachings during the Rashidun era is mirrored today in the emphasis on Islamic education and Quranic literacy in Muslim-majority countries. The ongoing relevance and influence of the Rashidun Caliphs' leadership styles provide useful insights for contemporary Muslim rulers, demonstrating the eternal importance of these ideals in directing Muslim-majority states despite modern world challenges.

Beyond Fixed Political Models of Religion–State Relations

Some of the dominant academic approaches to Muslim politics continue to assume the centrality of Islam on the question religion’s relationship to the state and the possibility of successful democracy in Muslim-majority states. On the one hand, based on findings from large N-surveys, some scholars have argued that most Muslims in many Muslim-majority states desire a political ‘third model’ that is neither secular nor theocratic. Instead, they want democracy and a public role for shari’a and Islam. However, this literature does not fully explain what such a third model would mean for certain individual rights in practice. It also assumes a normative position that tends to favour one or another version of ‘Islamic’ democracy. On the other hand, some other scholars have argued that one or another form of a secular Muslim democracy is possible. Both views assume that the reinterpretation of religious resources is crucial to achieve the desired ends. This ‘reformist Islam approach’ to Muslim politics does not seriously consider the implications of servicing Islam, even in its more reformist forms, for political ends. Through a combination of theoretical and normative arguments and in-depth interviews conducted in the Maldives, this article argues that the plurality of viewpoints and underlying reasonings for those viewpoints among ordinary people suggest the necessity to move ‘beyond Islam’. As such, an alternative discursive democratisation approach that considers this plurality and takes discourses more neutrally without privileging religious discourses can be more capacious. Instead of fixating on a particular model of the religion–state relationship and a particular type of discourse (e.g., reformist Islamic), a discursive democratisation approach points to democratic possibilities and how the religion–politics and religion–state nexuses may be shaped and reshaped through discourse contestations within public spheres in Muslim-majority states such as the Maldives.

Discuss the Relevance of Islamic Law in Modern Age with Reference to Its Application in Muslim Majority States and Non-Muslim Majority States

Discuss the Relevance of Islamic Law in Modern Age with Reference to Its Application in Muslim Majority States and Non-Muslim Majority States

Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Muslim World

This study examines trends in diplomatic relations between Bosnia and Herzegovina and five selected Muslim-majority states in the post-Dayton period in two major aspects. First, it observes and compares the quantity of their political relations and major initiatives towards enhancing cooperation in bilateral and multilateral forums. Second, it focuses on economic diplomacy, exploring bilateral trade, investment, and tourism. Using descriptive elements from both sections, the article finally reviews underlying factors, determinants, and pressures that explain why certain Muslim states have more intensive relations with B&H than others.

Discursive Construction of Indian Nation: Examining Indian Newspaper Editorials on Abrogation of Article 370

ABSTRACT This paper explores how the Indian nation was constructed in the Indian media following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which provided special status to the erstwhile Muslim-majority state of Jammu & Kashmir. It analyses news editorials published in the largest Indian English Times of India between 5 August 2019 and 30 September 2019. Situated in the discursive turn in the media and nationalism studies, this article considers nationalism as a form of discourse. The Critical Discourse Analysis of the editorials reveals that the newspaper, like political actors, pursued a nationalistic agenda through selective remembering and forgetting of Kashmir’s history and inclusion and exclusion of certain aspects of the Kashmir conflict to discursively construct the Indian nation. It presented Pakistan as the national “other” and otherised Kashmiris, especially “radicalised” youth of the Kashmir valley. It tried to construct a unified and homogenised Indian nation in which Kashmiris are included but as “domesticated” others. The editorials performed interpretative and persuasive roles to shape debates in public sphere over Article 370 and justified the Indian claim over territory of Kashmir. It authoritatively suggested the Indian government to differentiate “domesticated” Kashmiris from “undomesticated” others like militants and separatists.

Perception of the creation of a ‘Muslim state’ in intercepted telephone conversations between the serbian political elite 1991-1992.

During 1991, the security services of Bosnia and Herzegovina began to monitor the telephone conversations of high-ranking officials of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS). These recorded conversations reveal part of the truth to the preparations for the war and the genocide that followed. Intercepted conversations also show the connections that Serbian officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina had with Belgrade, that is, with Slobodan Milošević and other officials of the Yugoslav leadership. These conversations were recorded until the beginning of the aggression, that is, until they left the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in March and April 1992, by persons whose phones were tapped. This paper will deal with conversations that were recorded in the period from May 1991 to March 1992. One of the most common topics of these conversations was the issue of Islam, that is, the thematization of terms such as „Islamic Republic“, „Islamic Declaration“, „Islamic way of life“, „Islamic fundamentalism“, etc. The paper shows how the Serbian political elite used this terminology to instill fear in public opinion, but to a certain extent they also believed that an increased birth rate would lead to the establishment of a Muslim-majority state. For the purposes of writing this paper, research was done on primary sources, i.e. transcripts of intercepted conversations. The transcripts were used as evidence by the Prosecutor's Office of the Hague Tribunal during the trial of high-ranking Serbian officials. In addition to the research, sorting and analysis of the transcripts, this paper will also identify the most prominent participants in the conversation of the Serbian leadership. Also, given the aforementioned specificity of telephone conversations through their private nature, it is possible to dissect important topics in the conversations, which are often not military and political, and will contribute to finding additional answers. This makes these conversations even more important because they show a more intimate side of the genocidal strategist. Participants such as high-ranking officials Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, Biljana Plavšić, Nikola Koljević, Momčilo Krajišnik, Dobrica Čosić and others, shows what and how those at the top thought in their private telephone conversations in those days in 1991 and 1992. On the other hand, through the conversations, one can see how well the SDS leadership managed the situation on the ground. Low-ranking figures who performed various political and social tasks such as Todor Dutin, director of the SRNA, Rajko Dukić, president of the SDS Executive Committee and a local strongman in Milići appear in the conversations; Vojo Kuprešanin, member of the Main Board of SDS and a key man in Krajina; Vitomir Žepinić, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Radoslav Brđanin, head of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, Zvonko Bajagić, a prominent member of the SDS in Vlasenica, Gojko Đogo, writer and essayist, a close friend of Karadžić, Momčilo Momo Mandić, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina and later wartime Minister of Justice of the so-called „Republic Serbian“,; Trifko Komad, head of Radovan Karadžić's Cabinet and member of the SDS Main Board and many others. Also, what is important to mention is the visible 'radicalization' of the participants in the talks. As the political situation on the ground worsened, hate speech and threats became more frequent and serious. This paper aims to further approach this important topic of intercepted conversations and to popularize its greater use in scientific research works. With the advancement of technology and means of communication, the primary sources for research are slowly shifting and taking on a new look. Thus, this paper also tries to analyze these intercepted conversations to give some insight into the complexity of understanding the genocidal intentions of the Bosnian Serb leadership.

The Rights of Religious Minorities in Muslim-Majority States: A Comparative Study of Egyptian Copts and Iraqi Christians

This paper takes up the constitutional recognition of individual and collective rights for religious minorities in Muslim-majority states, discussing how constitutions in such states approach the question of legal protection for minorities in order to foster a climate conducive to coexistence between its constituent religious groups. It also examines the claims that Arab and Islamic states deny religious diversity, offering a comparative analytical study of the rights of Copts under the 2014 Egyptian constitution and the rights of Iraqi Christian minorities under the 2005 constitution. The study concludes that the constitutional provisions for the protection of the rights of religious minorities in these two states are relatively progressive compared to the constitutions of other Islamic states. This is particularly true of the Iraqi constitution, which generally has a better approach to the protections offered religious minorities than its Egyptian counterpart, especially when it comes to combatting discrimination and providing for political participation. Nevertheless, the study asserts that the real problem lies in the application of constitutional provisions on the ground due to the failure of the two states, particularly Egypt, to institute explicit procedural measures to guarantee genuine protection for minority religious rights.

RETRACTED: Socio-Political Representation of Dalit Fishing Community in Bangladesh in Harishankar Jaladas’s Novel Sons of the Sea

Bangladeshi Dalit literature added a new chapter in the history of Dalit narratives. Dalits in Bangladesh are double marginalized because of their ‘low caste’ and ‘minority’ status in the Muslim majority state. In the post-partition and post-independence era, Harishankar Jaladas emerged as a strong voice of the Dalit fishing community. He gave representation to the community by writing about the social, political, economic and religious history of the Dalit fishing community through his novel Sons of the Sea. The major fishing communities like Malo, Jele, Jaladas, Jaila, Kaibarta and Keot hail from the Namashudra group and are treated as untouchables by the upper castes. They are all subjected to the negligence of administration and contempt of the society. The majority of mainstream Muslim society also treated them as ‘other’. The usurious moneylenders ( Dadonders) would keep them under perpetual penury for generations by providing them net, boat and a little amount of money in advance for their survival. The author depicts the cultural identity of the Jaladas community with their beliefs, customs, feelings and social setup that represent their segregation from the mainstream social framework. Their socio-economic and educational status is still below the margin. There is no such research work that could seriously ponder over their issues. The present research article is a modest attempt to study the socio-political and economic position of the Jaladas fishing community in contemporary Bangladesh by focusing on the social structure and examining history. This work also critically examines the post-colonial challenges that the marginalized fishermen community encountered due to their caste status in Bangladesh. The study has followed the historical method, textual analysis and a comparative reading of other literary and non-literary texts to strengthen and support the arguments raised in the study.

Framing Blasphemy as a crime: the curious similarities between the secular left and the organization of Islamic cooperation

ABSTRACT The tensions between free speech and religious sensitivities are an ongoing source of political conflict, both within western democracies and within the UN human rights system where rivalling states compete to define the limits of freedom of expression. Examining the debate on free speech and its limits in the context of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris in 2015 and the Danish cartoon affair in 2005, this article analyzes the discursive similarities between secular critics of religious satire and Muslim-majority states in the UN. In both cases, censorship is justified on the basis of combating racism, hate speech, intolerance and related human rights violations. Instead of applying theological doctrines and religious language, the article shows how the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is gradually adopting secular and leftist mainstream human rights language in its quest to instal new international censorship norms.

Does deterrence-based enforcement matter in alms tax (Zakat) compliance?

PurposeGovernment seeks to realize its economic objectives and eventually its social objectives as well through taxation. In a Muslim-majority economy, besides many types of taxation imposed, some government also legally enforced an alms tax (Zakat) via specific authority. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of enforcement in Zakat compliance and how it can enhance the effect of social motivations, namely perceived institutional credibility and social pressure, on zakat payers' compliance decisions.Design/methodology/approachThis research is underpinned by economic deterrence theory and employed data collected through a cross-sectional approach. A total of 274 Yemeni entrepreneurs responded to the questionnaire and analysed using SmartPLS version 3.2.9.FindingsThe study finds that social pressure and institutional credibility are significantly related to entrepreneurs' compliance with Zakat. Importantly, enforcement-moderated interactions of social pressure and perceived credibility on Zakat payers' compliance are statistically significant.Practical implicationsSome signals emerged from the results which could be used by governments throughout the Muslim-majority state to mitigate Zakat evasion amongst entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the study can provide information to Zakat authorities and policymakers on how to restore public trustworthiness and increase Zakat collection from entrepreneurs as well as cautioning such authorities that social pressure may possess an unfavourable attitude towards Zakat laws, influencing Zakat payers to do this action itself.Originality/valueThis study provides a shred of unique evidence by suggesting a new approach to the Zakat literature and linking the deterrence-based enforcement and social motivation with practice, which contributes to strengthening compliance levels amongst entrepreneurs and ultimately enhancing Zakat funds.

Human Rights, Islam, and Debates around CEDAW

Abstract The article explores the tensions between FORB claims and the advancement of women’s rights in Muslim majority state contexts. Forms of Muslim majority state reservations to CEDAW are analysed in critical and comparative fashion. Iran’s historical engagement with CEDAW is studied for insight into how a purported theoretical conflict between CEDAW and FORB may be better understood in terms of the domestic and international politics of gender and power.

Review: Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods before Me: Why Governments Discriminate against Religious Minorities, by Jonathan Fox

Many have sensed what comedian Tom Lehrer sang in jest: “Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Hindus hate the Moslems, and everybody hates the Jews” (“National Brotherhood Week,” 1965). In Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me, Jonathan Fox digs deep into the data and provides a clear and well-written analysis to illustrate overwhelmingly that Lehrer was right, at least at the governmental level around the globe.Fox uses the third round of the Religion and State-Minorities data set—a subset of the Religion and State data set from more 180 countries (including more than 770 religious minorities) collected between 1990 and 2014—as the foundation for his research. Relying on these data, he seeks to explain “the nature, causes, and dynamics of government-based religious discrimination” (GRD), which he defines as “restrictions placed by governments or their agents on the religious practices or institution of religious minorities that are not placed on the majority religion” (3). Of necessity, part of Fox’s analysis includes a consideration of “societal religious discrimination” (SRD), which he defines as “societal actions taken against religious minorities by members of a country’s religious majority who do not represent the government” (4). But he also explores other theories to explain levels of GRD in various national groupings, which he identifies as the Muslim world, non-Orthodox Christian-majority democracies in the West and Europe (as defined by the 2018 “Polity Project” from the Center for Systemic Peace), Orthodox Christian, Buddhist, and Communist states, the Rest 1 (the democracies not already discussed) and the Rest 2 (the non-democracies not already discussed).Sadly, Fox finds that both GRD and SRD increased globally between 1990 and 2014, and that almost no nation was guiltless: nearly 95 percent of the nations covered engaged in GRD against at least one minority group. More profoundly, he finds that despite their self-congratulatory rhetoric, the non-Orthodox Christian-majority democracies in the West and Europe are not the best protectors of religious freedom. Rather, it is “the Rest” (both the democracies and the non-democracies)—particularly those in the Global South—that provide greater freedom to their religious minorities, likely because government-based discrimination requires the expenditure of scarce resources. Religious liberty, it seems, has less to do Western ideology than with cost-effectiveness. Among those nations that can afford to discriminate, GRD may result from security anxieties (related to religion-based terrorism), the identification of a religious tradition as “foreign” to the nation or culture, the existence of an official religion (or one favored by the government), or an anti-religion bias, as well as SRD and other factors.It is the reading of this work—and not its content or argumentation—that may present the greatest challenge. Readers from the humanities may find the material a bit dense; those more comfortable in the field of statistics and data analysis will doubtlessly have an easier time. Others might mistake the use of “religious minorities” (in the subtitle) to mean new religious movements and the like. But Fox relies on the data to define the term simply: religious groups that are not in the majority in a given nation-state (the unit of measure in the source data), such as Christians (and others) in Muslim-majority states, Protestants and Catholics (and others) in Orthodox Christian-majority states, and Jews everywhere but Israel. Readers must examine the charts and tables—which are plentiful—to find smaller groups or finer levels of distinction. Some of the author’s rhetorical tics may be distracting, such as restating (“…as I have argued”) or telegraphing (“as I will argue…”) claims, or his seeming enthusiasm for acronyms. Most are the result of the author’s reasonable impulses, either to provide a strong methodological foundation early in the work, or to save the reader from excessive repetition.These challenges are slight and are here offered as a caution to the reader and not as a critique of the work, which is so densely packed with data and analysis that this reviewer became increasingly judicious with the highlighter, not wishing to make its use superfluous. Readers should feel free, after assimilating the general layout, to scan sections rather than read the work straight through. It may work best as a handbook to which one turns, rather than a monograph to which one devotes evenings reading cover to cover. Nonetheless, Jonathan Fox’s Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me is a powerful and informative volume and will serve well all readers interested the relationship between governments worldwide and their religious minorities.

Between Orientalism and Anti-Muslim Racism

AbstractThis article explores some of the ways in which, in the early years of the united Pakistan experiment, elite educated Muslim East Bengali women experienced and narrated their relationship to the new Pakistan nation as they navigated the international stage as citizens of a new sovereign Muslim-majority state. In the context of the nascent Cold War and the Pakistani state’s efforts to develop its own relationship with the United States, one that was distinct from that of India and yet motivated almost entirely by concerns about the greater military might of this large neighbor, Pakistani women from both wings were quickly pulled into the orbit of US- and Soviet-sponsored women’s organizations targeting women around the world. In this article, the author focuses on the relationship between Pakistani and US women in the 1950s that emerges from the memoirs, biographies, and writings of Bengali Pakistani women active in this period, as well as from the archives—housed in Smith College’s Sophia Smith Collection—of one of the first formal US women’s groups to establish contact with East Bengali women leaders: the New York-based Committee of Correspondence.

Evaluating and Defending Religious Freedom

How religiously free are Muslim-majority states? What responsibility does Islam play in the presence or absence of religious freedom in these societies? In this illuminating volume, Daniel Philpott presents a nuanced view backed by subtle analysis. Muslim-majority states do suffer from a distinct dearth of religious freedom. Less than a quarter of these states enjoy high levels of religious freedom, far less than any other region in the world. Philpott shows that this lack of freedom is not a necessary product of Islam. The Muslim-majority states that exhibit religious freedom do so not despite Islamic teachings, but precisely because of how they interpret Islam. Philpott's analysis is anchored in the assumption that religious freedom is a universal norm, rooted in human dignity. He sees religions as essential to fulfillment and solace; thus, coercion, interference, and undue restrictions on religion are unjust. This universalist position provokes two types of relativist critics,...

Osmanlı Hukukun Ondokuzuncu Yüzyılda Evrimsel Sekülerleşmesi: Kökler ve Etkileri

In the world history, the nineteenth century witnessed globally major economic, politic, and social changes. More importantly, their implications constitute today’s challenges particularly for modern Muslim-majority states where the tension between state, religion and society has not been settled. There is no doubt that looking at the past where the separation between sharī‘a and state started clearly to appear serves for a better understanding of today’s struggle in locating the role of sharī‘a in legal systems of modern Muslim-majority states. Many of them, i.e. the Middle Eastern and some North African states are the successors of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans ruled over continents for centuries thanks to their well-established governmental policy and legal system. However, they were also obliged to introduce some remarkable changes in social, political and legal spheres in the nineteenth century. The era is generally called as the process of Ottoman modernization and secularisation referring to Tanzimat Edict and following legal reforms. This study seeks to analyse the way Ottoman law has been transformed in the nineteenth century, as well as its roots, challenges and implications. To this end, the paper offers an answer to the questions as to whether secularisation of Ottoman law was evolutionary or revolutionary, why it had to go through a process of secularisation, and to what extent classical Ottoman system could serve this secularisation process. To address these inquiries, the study is divided into two principle sections: the first part evaluates the classical Ottoman legal system and its religious and non-religious characters, arguing that the Turkish state tradition with its influence on government and law making were in fact the changeable features of the Ottoman law. The second part examines the process of secularisation of law from the pre-Tanzimat period to the end of the Ottoman Empire. This part reveals that secularisation of the Ottoman law was of evolutionary character, and that reforms were introduced thereafter for practical purposes, i.e. meeting contemporary needs and necessities, and not for the sake of philosophical and political considerations. However, these attempts led to a gradual secularisation of the Ottoman law, and further culminated in a revolutionary approach in the republican era.

Will Muslim-Majority States Recognise the Afghan Taliban’s ‘Islamic’ Regime?

Will Muslim-Majority States Recognise the Afghan Taliban’s ‘Islamic’ Regime?