Shari'a Law in the Secular State: The Modern Egyptian Legal System
Questions for Seminar:
- To what extent was Egypt's Civil Code inspired by the shari'a?
- Is "secular state" an accurate label for Egypt in the twentieth century?
Assigned Reading:
Nathan Brown, The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts in Egypt and the Gulf (Cambridge University Press, 1997), chapters 2 and 3 (e-book available).
Amr Shalakany, “Between Identity and Redistribution: Sanhuri, Genealogy and the Will to Islamise,” Islamic Law and Society 8 (2001), 201-44.
Nathan Brown, The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts in Egypt and the Gulf (Cambridge University Press, 1997), chapters 2 and 3 (e-book available).
Amr Shalakany, “Between Identity and Redistribution: Sanhuri, Genealogy and the Will to Islamise,” Islamic Law and Society 8 (2001), 201-44.
Further Reading:
Hussein Ali Agrama, Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty and the Rule of Law in Modern Egypt (University of Chicago Press, 2012).
Guy Bechor, The Sanhuri Code and the Emergence of Modern Arab Civil Law, 1932 – 1949 (Brill, 2007).
Richard Debs, Islamic Law and Civil Code: The Law of Property in Egypt (Columbia UP, 2010).
Enid Hill, Mahkama! Studies in the Egyptian Legal System (Ithaca Press, 1979).
Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, A History of Egypt: from the Arab Conquest to the Present Day (Cambridge UP, 2007).
Jacob Skovgaard-Petersen, Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dar al-Ifta (Brill, 1996).
For background reading on the general history of modern Egypt, see:
M.W. Daly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 2: Modern Egypt (Cambridge UP, 1998).
Robert Tignor, Egypt: A Short History (Princeton UP, 2011).