Law as Chameleon: The Question of Incorporation of Muslim Personal Law into the English Law
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2001
12 Pages Posted: 12 Mar 2011
Date Written: 2001
Abstract
This paper endeavours to analyse the existence of Muslim family laws and demands of application of Muslim personal law. As is known, in England, some Muslim groups have been campaigning to establish a Muslim personal law system in order to regulate autonomously their personal and family related issues according to Muslim law. The feasibility and probability of such a project will be discussed by making references to the socio-legal scholarship and the public medium. The relevant experience of the Pakistani personal law system will also be looked at in order to shed some more light on the discussion of whether having a personal law system ultimately solves the problems arising from the socio-legal reality of Muslim legal pluralism. In the end, we shall highlight the partial practical solution put into practice by the Muslim community exempli ed in the case of the Islamic Shari’a Council (ISC) of UK, realising that the state is reluctant to recognise and respond to the socio-legal reality.
Keywords: Britain, Islamic law, legal pluralism, hybrid laws, Muslims, unofficial laws
JEL Classification: Z, O19
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation