The Sharia is a topic that triggers a range of strong responses. In the West, the word "Sharia" often calls to mind antiquated laws founded upon gender discrimination and stern punishment.
In the East, for some it means the ideal standards by which Muslims strive to live. For others, it is the greatest obstacle to the modernisation of their societies.
These clashing views can sometimes be the cause of conflict and the latest publication produced by the ISMC, What is the Sharia?, sheds light on the evolution and implementation of this contested concept at multiple levels.
On the one hand the book explores the idea of Sharia as a pluralistic concept and focuses on the actual uses of the term (rather than some imagined ideal), and on the other it provides an overview of the history of the Islamic legal tradition helpful to scholars and students wishing to be initiated to the subject.
“The Sharia as a concept is both ubiquitous but also controversial,” said the author of the book, Professor Baudouin Dupret. “This means that society is in between considering it as a kind of virtuous abstraction and as a vicious scarecrow. My intention is to provide the audience with a map that may not give them definite answers…but will help them navigate the complex concept.”
What is the Sharia? explore the sources of Sharia and gets to the heart of its uses and abuses in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the book, Professor Dupret insists that the idealisation and demonisation of the Sharia are two sides of the same coin. It questions attempts to essentialise the term and to view the Sharia as a monolith that is unaffected by various socio-historical influences.
The book has been published in association with Hurst Publishers with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and is available
here.
The Sharia is a topic that triggers a range of strong responses. In the West, the word "Sharia" often calls to mind antiquated laws founded upon gender discrimination and stern punishment.
In the East, for some it means the ideal standards by which Muslims strive to live. For others, it is the greatest obstacle to the modernisation of their societies.
These clashing views can sometimes be the cause of conflict and the latest publication produced by the ISMC, What is the Sharia?, sheds light on the evolution and implementation of this contested concept at multiple levels.
On the one hand the book explores the idea of Sharia as a pluralistic concept and focuses on the actual uses of the term (rather than some imagined ideal), and on the other it provides an overview of the history of the Islamic legal tradition helpful to scholars and students wishing to be initiated to the subject.
“The Sharia as a concept is both ubiquitous but also controversial,” said the author of the book, Professor Baudouin Dupret. “This means that society is in between considering it as a kind of virtuous abstraction and as a vicious scarecrow. My intention is to provide the audience with a map that may not give them definite answers…but will help them navigate the complex concept.”
What is the Sharia? explore the sources of Sharia and gets to the heart of its uses and abuses in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the book, Professor Dupret insists that the idealisation and demonisation of the Sharia are two sides of the same coin. It questions attempts to essentialise the term and to view the Sharia as a monolith that is unaffected by various socio-historical influences.
The book has been published in association with Hurst Publishers with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and is available
here.