Law

and Society in Muslim Contexts

http://faculty.washington.edu/aosanloo/510/510.html
LSJ 510
Winter 2010

Meeting Time: Tuesday 2:30 - 4:50


Instructor: Arzoo Osanloo
Room: Smith 111





Office Hours: Mon. 11-12:30
Credits: 5






Office: 46 Gowen Hall

Course Description

This interdisciplinary seminar brings insights from socio-legal studies to the study of Islamic law.
With the aid of post-structuralist theories of law and society, this course will trace the meanings
of 'shari'a' loosely referred to as 'Islamic law,' and the 'umma' or 'Muslim community' in various
Muslim contexts. In addition, this course will consider socio-legal issues in contemporary
Muslim-majority nation-states by excavating and exploring state structures and civil institutions,
especially the juridical fields, which include 'fiqh' or 'Islamic jurisprudence,' hybrid or plural legal
systems, and the actual practices and operations of Islamic laws.

The primary focus of the course will be on unpacking the political, cultural and economic logics
underlying these disciplinary and regulatory systems in order to gain a better understanding of
how Islamic principles (shari'a) have been translated into law (qanun) through civil codes, how
they operate legally and socially in contemporary Muslim-majority societies, and what kinds of
subjectivities they engender. The readings for the course will examine issues related to post-
colonial nation-state building and the integration of Islamic principles therein, family and
personal status laws, and criminal sanctioning. Finally, we will delve into current jurisprudential
debates among the 'ulama' or religious scholars, who, as the keepers of 'ilm' or knowledge, are
increasingly called upon to offer guidance on the new and pressing issues with which Muslim
communities are faced, such as human rights, torture, laws of war, death penalty and calls for
gender equality.

Students should have some background in Islamic law or Middle East studies before taking this
course.

REQUIREMENTS

This is an advanced graduate seminar with five main requirements: weekly reading response go-
posts, discussion facilitation, two book reviews, a final paper, and vigorous participation.
Discussion is the primary avenue of instruction. Readings, assignments and class meetings are
designed to inspire you to elaborate new ideas and engage in critical thinking, discussion, and
writing. Active and engaged discussion is critical to your success.

While I will provide parameters for discussion, and context for the course design and its topical
trajectory, the substantive discussion of the readings is left primarily to the students.
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Reading Response Go-posts Prior to each class meeting, you should post a 1- 2 page (500-
1000 words) reading responses essay (or go-post). These responses should contain an
annotation of the text. By this I mean a discussion of the key points, main argument, and
especially, your critical reflection on the major themes of the book. Go-posts are aimed at
prompting inquiry, analysis and discussion, both in class and on-line. Go-posts are due by 10:00
a.m. the day of class. Please print your post and bring it to class for reference. You should try to
read one anothers go-posts before coming to class. Go-posts which are posted late or contain
less than the minimum number of words will not count towards the total requirement of eight
posts. The address for go-posts is:

https://catalysttools.washington.edu/gopost/board/aosanloo/14515/

Discussion Facilitation Each class students introduce the material by offering background, key
arguments and questions for discussion. The main goal of discussion facilitation is to enhance
the overall intellectual experience of the class. Facilitators may provide theoretical depth,
historical background, or a different point of view. This will also help us all develop a better
sense of the intellectual genealogy of this field. I am happy to work with you to develop your
facilitation. Students will sign-up to facilitate at least twice in the quarter. Additional guidance
will be provided in class.

Book Review Assignment Two 5-7 page book reviews are due; the first by the fifth week of
the quarter (2/2) and the second by the last day of class (3/9). The book review assignment is
intended to give you an opportunity to trace the intellectual trajectory of one aspect of this field
that will be useful for your future research. It is intended to allow you to begin building a body
of literature on a topic of your choice. This assignment may be a collaborative project (as I am
not opposed to students working together on this), but each student must turn in a separate
and distinguishable piece of work. As a class, we will share our resulting literature reviews to
allow everyone to benefit from a final, unified body of literature we produce. Additional
guidance will be provided in class.

Paper A 15-20 page final analytical paper is required. For final papers, you need to initiate
your own investigation, but please do discuss topics with me. Papers should focus on a specific
issue and contain analysis, but they might also include analysis of a theme from the course.
Ideally this paper should be a part of your own research investigations. For this course, I am
quite flexible about the nature of the writing requirements and will be interested in your
suggestions for critically engaged papers.

Final Papers are due no later than Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at noon. Please hand papers in,
in hard copy, to 46 Gowen Hall or my mailbox in the Political Science department. I do not
accept emailed papers. Late papers will receive a .3 grade deduction per day. Papers turned in
late risk not being graded by the end of the quarter, in which case students will receive an I on
their grade report.

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Participation This course aims to encourage and enhance critical thinking and analytical skills.
For this reason, discussion is a crucial component of learning in this class. While you will not be
graded on the quality of statements made, vigorous discussion is required.

GRADING Grades will be based on reading response go-posts (20%), discussion facilitation (2 x
10%), book reviews (2 x 10%), final paper (20%), and active, engaged participation (20%).

TEXTS There are five books for this class. All should be easy to find through numerous online
bookstores. I have also attempted to place them on course reserves at the Odegaard
undergraduate library. In addition to the books, we will have articles and selections of books in a
course pack, which have been noted with the symbol c p . The course pack will be available for
purchase at Rams Copy Center at 4144 University Way NE. There are also some readings that
will be scanned and linked to the course website. They are designated as p DF .

Please obtain the following books, listed in the order we will read them (you have an extra week
to obtain them and should be able to procure at least some of them from online book sellers at
a discount from the list price):

Kamali, Mohammad Hashim, Shariah Law: An Introduction. Oxford: One World Press
2008.

Zaman, Muhammad Qasim, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 2002.

An-Naim, Abdullahi Ahmed, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of
Sharia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2008.

Mottahedeh, Roy, The Mantle for the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. New York:
Simon and Schuster 1985.

Sachedina, Abdulaziz, Islam and The Challenge of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2009.

Course Outline and Schedule of Readings

Due to the evolving nature of our discussions, this course aims to keep a flexible approach to the topics
under consideration. Thus, readings and schedules are subject to slight changes.

Week 1 (Jan 5): Socio-legal approaches to the study of Islamic Law

Pre-assigned readings (these have been emailed to you):

PDF Hallaq, Wael, What is Sharia? Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, 2005-2006,

Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers 2007. vol. 12:151-80.
PDF Derrida, Jacques, Force of Law: The Mystical Foundations of Authority. In, Jacques

Derrida: Acts of Religion, Gil Anidjar, ed. New York: Routledge 2002. Pps. 230-298.
Suggested for familiarizing yourself with the basics:
Abdullah Saeed, The Quran: an introduction. New York: Routledge 2008 (especially Pps. 162-

234).

Week 2 (Jan 12): No Class

Please use this time to order books and to read background materials.

We will have a make-up class for this session during week 7.

Week 3 (Jan 19): Sources, Methods and Science of Jurisprudence

cp Al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, Approaching the Sunnah: Comprehension and Controversy. Jamil

Qureshi, trans. The International Institute of Islamic Thought: Herndon, VA: 2006[1990].

Pps. 1-89.
Kamali, Mohammad Hashim, Shariah Law: An Introduction. Oxford: One World Press 2008.

Chaps. 1-8.
Additional resources:
Al-Alwani, Taha Jabiri, Source Methodology in Islamic Jurisprudence. Yusuf Talal Delorenzo &

Anas S. Al Shaikh-Ali. Trans. The International Institute of Islamic Thought: Herndon, VA

2003[1990].
Hallaq, Wael B. An introduction to Islamic law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009.

Week 4 (Jan 26): Intellectual Development of Islamic Jurisprudence

Zaman, Muhammad Qasim, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change.

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 2002.
cp Amanat, Abbas and Frank Griffel, eds., Sharia: Islamic Law in the Contemporary Context.

Stanford: Stanford University Press 2007. Chaps. 1-4.



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Week 5 (Feb 2): Modern Nation-State Formations and Sharia

An-Naim, Abdullahi Ahmed, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2008. Chaps. 1-3.
cp Foucault, Michel, Governmentality. In, The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality.

Burchell, Gordon, and Miller, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1991. Pps. 87-

104.
PDF Mitchell, Timothy, Society, Economy, and the State Effect. In, State/Culture: State-

Formation after the Cultural Turn. George Steinmetz, eds. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University

Press 1999. Pps. 76-97.

Week 6 (Feb 9): Legal Effects of the Secular State

cp Foucault, Michel, Society Must Be Defended,: Lectures at the Collge de France 1975-1976.

New York: Picador 1997 [2003]. Pps. 23-41, 239-264.
PDF Peters, R., "From Jurists' Law to Statute Law or What Happens When the Shari'a is Codified."

MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS. LONDON: FRANK CASS 2002. 7: 82-95.
An-Naim, Abdullahi Ahmed, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2008. Chaps. 4-7.
Further reading:
Hunt, Alan and Gary Wickham, Foucault and law: towards a sociology of law as governance.

Boulder, CO: Pluto Press 1994.

Week 7 (Feb 16): Family Law

cp Foucault, Michel, History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books 1978 [1990]. Pps. 103-131.
cp Quraishi, Asifa and Frank E. Vogel, eds., The Islamic Marriage Contract: Case Studies in

Islamic Family Law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2008. Pps. 11-45, 87-122, 123-

135, 200-214, 331-347.
Further reading:
PDF Osanloo, Arzoo, Islamico-civil rights talk: women, subjectivity, and law in Iranian family

court, American Ethnologist, 33(2): 191-209, May 2006.

Week 7 (Feb 19): Criminal Sanctioning

cp Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books

1977 [1995]. Pps. 3-31, 73-103, 135-169.
cp Peters, Rudolph, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the

Sixteenth to the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005. Pps.

6-68 & 142-185.
Kamali, Shariah Law, Chap. 9.



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Further reading:
Nateri, Mohammad Ebrahim Shams, Formal and Informal Means of Conflict Resolution in

Murder Cases in Iran. In Conflicts and Conflict Resolution in Middle Eastern Societies -

Between Tradition and Modernity. Albrecht, Simon, Rezaei, Rohne, Kiza, eds. Ettenheim:

Stueckle Druck und Verlag 2006. Pps. 401-10.

Week 8 (Feb 23): Political Islam and Shiite State

Mottahedeh, Roy, The Mantle for the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. New York: Simon

and Schuster 1985.
pdf Khomeini, Islamic Government. Pps. 25-166. http://www.al-islam.org/islamicgovernment/
cp Amanat, Sharia: Islamic Law in the Contemporary Context, Chap. 8

Week 9 (Mar 2): Islam and Human Rights

cp Agamben, Giorgio, Means without end: notes on politics. Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press. 2000. Pps. 3-25.
Sachedina, Abdulaziz, In, Islam and The Challenge of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University

Press 2009.
PDF Osanloo, Arzoo, The Measure of Mercy: Islamic Justice, Sovereign Power, and Human

Rights in Iran, Cultural Anthropology, 21(4): 570-602, November 2006.
Kamali, Shariah Law, Chap. 10 (skim).
Further reading:
Arendt, Hannah, The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man. In, The

Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt 1966. Pps. 267-302.
PDF Zizek, Slavoj, Against Human Rights. New Left Review 34: July/August 2005. Pps. 115-131.
PDF Ranciere, Jacques, Who is the subject of human rights? The South Atlantic Quarterly

103:2/3, Spring/Summer 2004. Pps. 298-310.

Week 10 (Mar 9): Islamic Jurisprudence for a new age

Kamali, Shariah Law, Chaps. 11, 12, 13 & Conclusion.
Vogt, Kari, Lena Larsen, and Christian Moe, eds. New Directions in Islamic Thought: Exploring

Reform and Muslim Tradition. London: I.B. Tauris 2009. (Selections will be available on

the course website in
pDF ):

Barlas, Asma, Hold(ing) fast by the best precepts. Pps. 17-22.

Kadivar, Mohsen, Human rights and intellectual Islam. Pps. 47-73.

Mir-Hosseini, Ziba, Classical fiqh, contemporary ethics and gender justice. Pps. 77-88.

Ali, Kecia, Timeless texts and modern morals Challenges in Islamic sexual ethics. Pps.

89-99.

Ramadan, Tariq, A call for a moratorium on corporeal punishment. Pps. 163-174.

Vogt, Kari, et al, Can the State enforce Sharia? A Discussion in Yogyakarta. Pps. 209-

219.
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