Volume 14, Issue 1 -

Scholarship on personal status law systems in Muslim-majority countries stresses the challenges facing women’s rights activists seeking to reform family laws. Yet, little research is done on how Islamic family law systems, being inherently pluralistic, could enable activists to challenge hegemonic hermeneutical understandings of Islam. This article draws from a qualitative study of a decade and a half long campaign to reform divorce laws in Egypt to argue that dual legal systems, like the Egyptian one, enabled women’s rights activists to push forward novel hybrid rights claims, despite the structural and discursive constraints they faced. Grounding those claims in the context of Egypt’s pluralistic family law system and shrewdly negotiating multiple legal orders, including alternative interpretations of Islamic Shari’a and national codes, women’s rights activists successfully utilized the cultural power of legal pluralism. The success of this campaign demonstrates the ways in which the institutional and discursive dimensions of a pluralistic family law system in Egypt provided a surprising resource for reform. On a theoretical level, the case study presented in this article highlights the complex legacy and consequences of legal pluralism on women’s rights within culturally and politically constrained settings.

This paper examines the relationship between gender, religion, and development within the context of illegal fatwas (i. e. religious edicts) affecting women in rural Bangladesh. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in two districts in Bangladesh, this paper argues that biased fatwa decrees at the rural level against women are not simply the expression of traditional religious beliefs; social and cultural gender roles and perceptions defined through patriarchy must be taken into account. The advent of the women-centered development agenda in rural Bangladesh and the emergence of the female working-class have led to an increase in religious fundamentalism in rural communities. Fatwas thus reflect this increase as a result of friction between NGO programs seeking to provide women with new opportunities and rural male elites set on maintaining traditional power structures. This study reveals the importance of NGO-led interventions as the best justice-seeking mechanism to empower rural women in Bangladesh, and highlights the significance of engaging with various competing factors that lead to gender violence in the country.

This study creates an index that reveals the extent to which Western European countries accommodate Islamic traditions and practices. The index covers six realms in which Muslim communities seek accommodation: (1) education, (2) chaplaincy services, (3) mosques, (4) cemeteries, (5) Islamic attire, and (6) halal food. The study examines and quantifies the state policies in twenty Western European countries on both national and municipal levels with a particular focus on actual implementation. Results indicate that Western European countries vary widely in terms of their accommodation of Islam. There are also notable within-country differences, due in part to regional governments, as they also make and/or implement policy decisions. Both between- and within-country variations in the accommodation of Islam reveal a variety of nuances, and blur dual categories, such as ethnic-civic and assimilationist-integrationist.

The right to freedom of expression is a qualified right: it allows expression that might ‘offend, shock or disturb’ but prohibits ‘insults’, ‘abusive attacks’ and ‘hate speech’. Applying the Convention test I argue that all cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which although might offend Muslims, are an acceptable form of expression in Western democracies except cartoon number two implying the Prophet Muhammad as a ‘terrorist’ which is ‘insulting’ and ‘an abusive attack’ on the Muslim community and Islam. In the post-9/11 circumstances, it may be viewed as a vehicle for instigating hatred against the Muslim community. By critiquing the inaction of Denmark and France, I argue that failure to prosecute Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo violates Articles 9(1) of the European Convention and the Danish Criminal Code and the French Freedom of Press Act 1881. Relying on ECtHR’s jurisprudence, I argue that the values of the Convention and democracy aim to nurture a society based on tolerance, social peace, non-discrimination and broad-mindedness. The public space is a shared space and no single group – religious and non-religious – can monopolise nor intimidate it.

Levels of support for democratic governance and human rights in the Occupied West Bank appear to be inextricably linked. Although definitions of these two concepts are by no means universal, the contexts in which opinions are formed about these notions are significant. What meaning do these concepts have to Palestinians? How are these ideals examined and debated in a society that has remained under occupation for more than half a century? To answer these questions, this article explores the results of an original, representative public opinion survey (n=832) conducted in the West Bank in the summer of 2013, which coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Oslo Accords. The results point to high levels of cynicism towards human rights and democracy. I argue that the reason for this is directly related to exposure to the Israeli occupation, its policies, and a feeling of disenchantment with humanitarian organizations funded by governments that take no meaningful action to end the occupation.

The core of the argument of this article is that the integration of Islamic notions of justice into transitional justice mechanisms in the MENA makes for a more viable and sustainable transitional justice process in the region. This would mean a critical cultural value in the MENA is given a place in dealing with the past and mapping out a sustainable future in the region. The argument here is premised on the logic that a social transformation-focused enterprise like transitional justice ought to engage with Islam for sustainable outcomes in societies in the MENA where Islam is very influential. Given the significant role and influence of Islam on cultural, socio-political and legal institutions in the MENA, a process of transitional justice that takes account of Islamic values and practices is important for negotiating justice and institutionalising reforms in societies in the region.