This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
Azam Ahmed and Habib Zahori, ‘Despite West’s Efforts, Afghan Youths Cling to Traditional Ways,’ New York Times, July 31, 2013.
Taha Husayn. The Future of Culture in Egypt. Sidney Glazer, trans. Washington, DC: American Council of Learned Societies, 1954: 15.
Wael B. Hallaq. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009: 27.
Ibid: 27.
Mohammad Hashim Kamali. Shari’ah Law: An Introduction. Oxford: OneWorld Press, 2008: 200.
Hallaq. op cit., 60.
Khaled Fahmy. “Ministry of Culture or Ministry of Intellectuals?” Ahram Online, Saturday, June 8, 2013.
See Guillermo O’Donnell (Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973) who discussed this alternative to democracy that has more recently been applied to China and its phenomenal growth over the last three decades.
Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, Chapter 1.
With the exception of some very specific commandments in the Qur’an—specific qat‘i statements for ibadat, or devotional acts (prayer and the five pillars), for personal status issues such as marriage, divorce and inheritance, and for hudud punishments for murder, theft, robbery, adultery, slander, intoxication, and apostasy—most divine mandates of shari‘a are general guidelines—mu‘amalat, or non-sacred relations, zanni, speculative statements, and ‘amm general statements that together lend themselves to interpretation. Legal scholars use these general guidelines, along with the sunna or hadith, to develop the actual laws that are applied to community life. Islamic law, fiqh, and its different schools of law, are not divine but are man-made, though based on anterior divine fundamentals.
New laws, applying to new situations, come about through ijtihad by qualified mujtahidun (‘analysts’) who consider and weigh various methods—(1) consensus (ijma), (2) tradition (taqlid), (3) analogy (qiyas), best practices (istihsan), continuity (istishab), and public interest (istislah)—in arriving at fiqh, or ordinary law. These methods are to be found in books on the usul al-fiqh, (‘principles of Islamic jurisprudence’). This means, in essence, that reforms can emerge from within Islamic law and not rely on the West for inspiration. Moreover, these can be culturally more palatable.
For more on this movement, see http://archive.adl.org/learn/ext_us/scm.html?xpicked=4.
Wael Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?’ International Journal of Middle East Studies. vol. 16, no. 1. March, 1984: 3–41.
For more on the history of law in Egypt, see Enid Hill’s fascinating study Al Sanhuri and Islamic Law. Cairo Papers in the Social Science 10:1. Cairo: AUC Press. Spring 1987.
See Giles Kepel, The Prophet and the Pharaoh: Muslim Extremism in Egypt. London: Al Saqi Books. 1985:151.
Interested readers are encouraged to look at http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/68729/Egypt/Politics-/Poll-Morsi-approval-hits-record-low.aspx Here, a graph in an Ahram Online article dated April 8, 2013 intended to show the low support for then president Muhammad Mursi also shows the splintered and negligible support given to alternative candidates.
Denis Kandiyoti. “Bargaining with Patriarchy.’ Gender and Society. vol. 2, no. 3. 1988: 274–90.
James Toth. Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of an Islamic Intellectual. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 98.
Ibid: 59.
Ibid: 240–241.
James Toth. “Local Islam Gone Global: The Roots of Religious Militancy in Egypt and Its Transnational Transformation.” in June Nash, ed. Global Social Movements: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004:124.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Toth, J. Review of three books on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Cont Islam 10, 123–169 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-015-0337-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-015-0337-z