This important new study describes and analyzes the response of Egyptian society, as reflected in court decisions, to legal reform pertaining to matters of personal status and succession during the first half of the twentieth century. The main issues in this regard are the extent to which traditional law and legal reform are implemented or circumvented in daily practice, and the role of the judges in this process. Family and the Courts in Modern Egypt contains three parts: marriage, divorce, and intergenerational relations. Scholars and the general reader will find its main...

In Rethinking Islamic Legal Modernism Ron Shaham challenges the common opinion that Islamic legal modernism, as represented by Rashid Rida (d. 1935), is of poor intellectual quality and should not be considered an authentic development within Islamic law. The book focuses on the celebrated Sunni jurist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi (b. 1926), whom Shaham perceives as a close follower of Rida. By studying the coherence of Qaradawi's Wasati theory of ijtihad and the consistency of its application in his legal opinions (fatwas), Shaham argues that Qaradawi, by means of eclecticism and synthesis, conducts...