The Islamic Tradition, the Arts, and Freedom of Expression

Eleni Polymenopoulou, Brunel University London, is publishing A Thousand Ways to Kiss the Earth: Artistic Freedom, Cultural Heritage and Islamic Extremism in volume 17 of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion (Fall 2015). Here is the abstract.

The paper discusses controversies on freedom of expression and the arts, focusing on Islam and Muslim sensibilities. Drawing from historical examples and the perception of visual arts and music in the Islamic tradition, it attempts to shed light upon incidents such as the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the intentional destruction of cultural heritage by extremists in Mali, Syria and Iraq in the case of global-scale controversies. After examining the concepts of blasphemy (sabb), apostasy (ridda) and idolatry (shirk) in Islamic law, it considers the legitimacy of legal claims related to blasphemous expressions from an international law perspective. The paper distinguishes between violent and non-violent claims and argues that freedom of expression should prevail in all cases involving blasphemy and offences to sensibilities. It also takes the view, however, that this solution is not necessarily a sustainable one. Empowering cultural rights as a whole, rather than seeking to resolve a fictitious conflict between rights, seems to be a more effective pathway to address complex issues involving religious extremism and hate speech.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Dispute Resolution In Chinese Courts

Matthew S. Erie, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, is publishing Muslim Mandarins in Chinese Courts: Dispute Resolution, Islamic Law, and the Secular State in Northwest China in Law and Social Inquiry. Here is the abstract.

Many sociolegal studies have investigated the relationship between state law and informal law, examining alternative dispute resolution and popular justice as intersections between state law and informal law. However, such questions have received little attention in East Asian authoritarian states. I use the case of dispute resolution among Chinese Muslim minorities (the Hui) to re-examine the relationship between state law and Islamic law. Based on nineteen months of fieldwork in Northwest China, I argue that the Hui case shows codependence between the types of law. Law is deeply embedded in social relationships between the Hui and the Party-State. An analysis of personalistic relationships shows the ways in which religious and secular authorities access each other, transforming each other’s law to augment their own legitimacy, but not without the potential for violence. The China case illuminates dynamics between Muslim communities and states that are prevalent elsewhere, particularly in the post-9/11 period.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Papers: Special Issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

From Anne Wagner at the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law:

CALL FOR PAPERS - SPECIAL ISSUE ON ISLAMIC LAW INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE SEMIOTICS OF LAW

Anne WagnerExpert in Legal Semiotics and Communication, Associate Professor

You are invited to contribute a paper to a special issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (IJSL) in English, Guest edited by Rafat Y. Alwazna. The special issue will be devoted to deal with issues related to Islamic Law. The themes of the issue include, but are not limited to the following:

• The translatability of Islamic Law
• The linguistic aspects of Islamic texts
• Terms and concepts peculiar to Islamic Law
• Differences in the interpretation of meanings and concepts among the four Sunni Schools of Law
• Legal reasoning within the realm of Islamic Law
• Islamic culture and its influence on Islamic legal rulings

Paper abstracts should be up to 200 words, and full papers should not exceed 15,000 words. All paper abstracts should be sent to alwazna@gmail.com

Important Dates:

Deadline for paper abstract submission is 1-10-2014.
Notification of abstract acceptance is 1-11-2014.
Deadline for full paper submission is 1-5-2015.
The special issue is expected to be published in 2015-2016.

For more information about the IJSL, please visit:
http://www.springer.com/law/journal/11196

Law, Gender, Islamophobia, and YouTube

Suzanne Bouclin, University of Ottawa, Common Law Section, has published YouTube and Muslim Women's Legal Subjectivities in volume 3 of the Oñati Socio-Legal Series (2013). Here are the English and Spanish abstract.

   

English Abstract: This paper is located within the discursive and spatio-temporal landscape of post 9/11 Canada in which national identity and beliefs about belonging are embedded in pervasive Islamophobia. Its starting point is that social media are key sites for expression of discrimination and intolerance vis-à-vis people of the Muslim faith, and especially the constitution of Muslim face and head scarves as a metonym for Islamic terrorism and a quintessential symbol of uniquely fundamentalist manifestation of patriarchy. I ask, however, whether new modes of visibility might be captured when we examine representational sites of Muslim femininity through the lens of ‘new’ or ‘critical’ legal pluralism. I highlight how women have used Social Networking Sites (SNSs) to respond and reconfigure more entrenched discourses around Muslim femininity circulated elsewhere, such as in formal institutionalized state-based law, mainstream/Western feminist discourses, and in popular cultural productions. I have found that Muslim women deploy social media to constitute or express alternative subjectivities and to represent and evaluate their own understandings of feminism, normative femininity, religious practices, including the multiple meanings that attach to the donning of Islamic headscarves.

Spanish Abstract: Este documento se encuentra en el paisaje discursivo y espacio-temporal de la Canadá post 11-S, cuya identidad nacional y creencias sobre la pertenencia están integradas en la islamofobia dominante. Su punto de partida es que las redes sociales son sitios clave para la expresión de la discriminación y la intolerancia vis-à-vis de la fe musulmana, y en especial la constitución del rostro musulmán y del pañuelo en la cabeza como una metonimia de terrorismo islámico y el símbolo por excelencia de la única manifestación fundamentalista del patriarcado. Me pregunto, sin embargo, si las nuevas formas de visibilidad pueden ser capturadas cuando examinamos sitios de representación de la feminidad musulmana a través de la lente de un "nuevo" o "crítico" pluralismo jurídico. La autora destaca cómo las mujeres han utilizado sitios de redes sociales para responder y volver a configurar discursos más arraigados alrededor de la feminidad musulmana distribuidos en otros lugares, como la ley formal basada en el estado institucionalizado, discursos feministas dominantes/ occidentales, y las producciones culturales populares. La autora encuentra que las mujeres musulmanas utilizan los medios sociales para constituir o expresar subjetividades alternativas y para representar y evaluar su propia comprensión del feminismo, la feminidad normativa o las prácticas religiosas, incluyendo los múltiples significados que se adhieren a la colocación del velo islámico.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. NB: The article is in English.

Middle Eastern Law

Chihbli Mallat, University of Utah College of Law & Université Saint-Joseph, and Mara Revkin, Yale Law School, have published Middle Eastern Law at 9 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 405 (2013). Here is the abstract.

This article maps Middle Eastern law in some of the thousand plateaus where it operates/operated: Mesopotamian law, Roman provincial law, Islamic law, and post-colonial law, with layers within each, such as Elephantine law in Egypt and Jewish and Christian law in Islam's classical age, as well as new worlds of law, such as Byzantine and Ethiopian law, in which scholarship about interaction with other layers of Middle Eastern law is either inexistent or just starting. The focus is directed as much as possible to the extant documentation in the legal record that most affects people's lives: court decisions. For the modern period, we survey, from the point of view of the legal practitioner, lawyer, or judge, the various bodies of case law and codes in the everyday practice of the Middle East lawyer. A legal family analogous to the common or civil law traditions, Middle Eastern law has emerged as a coherent and active discipline that is increasingly a subject of inquiry for historians, social scientists, and others outside of the legal profession. This article presents the field for more sustained attention from lawyers, judges, and law professors.

The full text is not available from SSRN.