Islamic Jurisprudence

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

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2. The Origins of Islamic Law

   • C. G. Weeramantry

   Pages 1-13

3. The Arabic Resurgence of Learning

   • C. G. Weeramantry

   Pages 14-29

4. The Sources of Islamic Law

   • C. G. Weeramantry

   Pages 30-45

5. The Schools of Law

   • C. G. Weeramantry

   Pages 46-58

6. Some Basic Islamic Legal Ideas

   • C. G. Weeramantry

   Pages 59-93

7. Islamic Influences on European Legal Philosophy and Law

   • C. G. Weeramantry

   Pages 94-112

8. Islam and Human Rights

   • C. G. Weeramantry

   Pages 113-127

9. Islamic International Law

   • C. G. Weeramantry

   Pages 128-163

10. The Value of Islamic Jurisprudence to the Non-Islamic World

    • C. G. Weeramantry

    Pages 164-170

11. Back Matter

    Pages 171-207

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Islamic jurisprudence is a much misunderstood system. The misunderstanding is due to lack of information and to centuries of prejudice. This book seeks to present information, not at present available in a single work, on the pioneering efforts of Islamic jurists to develop a comprehensive body of human rights, principles and practice, as well as a corpus of international law principles. The attempt to develop such international law principles long anticipated any similar work in other legal or cultural systems. Human rights doctrine based upon the Qu'ran and the Sunna of the Prophet was expressed in terms which will strike the reader as surprisingly modern. In international law, Islamic treatises anticipated the work of Grotius by eight centuries. It is hoped that this systematic exposition, not attempted before in such detail, will help considerably in reducing misunderstanding and the resulting tensions, as well as being of considerable value to the Islamic world. The work will be of interest not only to lawyers, but also to philosophers, historians, sociologists, political scientists and students of international affairs.

• commercial law
• comparative law
• criminal justice
• human rights
• international law
• law

• Monash University, Australia

  C. G. Weeramantry

C. G. WEERAMANTRY is Professor of Law at Monash University in Australia and was formerly a Justice of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. He teaches international law and human rights and has written several works on those subjects and on comparative law.