Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is often described as the human understanding and practices of the sharia, that is human understanding of the divine Islamic law as revealed in the Quran and the Sunnah. Fiqh expands and develops Shariah through interpretation (ijtihad) of the Quran and Sunnah by Islamic jurists (ulama) and is implemented by the rulings (fatwa) of jurists on questions presented to them. Thus, whereas sharia is considered immutable and infallible by Muslims, fiqh is considered fallible and changeable. Fiqh deals with the observance of rituals, morals and social legislation in Islam as well as political system. In the modern era, there are four prominent schools (madh'hab) of fiqh within Sunni practice, plus two within Shi'a practice. A person trained in fiqh is known as a faqīh.
A fatwā is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified jurist in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a mufti, and the act of issuing fatwas is called iftāʾ. Fatwas have played an important role throughout Islamic history, taking on new forms in the modern era.
Sharia is a body of religious law that forms part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. The manner of its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslims and Secularists.
The Napoleonic Code, officially the Civil Code of the French is the French civil code established under the French Consulate in 1804 and still in force, although frequently amended.
Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it has changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilisations and operates in the wider context of social history. Certain jurists and historians of legal process have seen legal history as the recording of the evolution of laws and the technical explanation of how these laws have evolved with the view of better understanding the origins of various legal concepts; some consider legal history a branch of intellectual history. Twentieth-century historians viewed legal history in a more contextualised manner - more in line with the thinking of social historians. They have looked at legal institutions as complex systems of rules, players and symbols and have seen these elements interact with society to change, adapt, resist or promote certain aspects of civil society. Such legal historians have tended to analyse case histories from the parameters of social-science inquiry, using statistical methods, analysing class distinctions among litigants, petitioners and other players in various legal processes. By analyzing case outcomes, transaction costs, and numbers of settled cases, they have begun an analysis of legal institutions, practices, procedures and briefs that gives a more complex picture of law and society than the study of jurisprudence, case law and civil codes can achieve.
A nationwide judicial system in Iran was first implemented and established by Abdolhossein Teymourtash under Reza Shah, with further changes during the second Pahlavi era.
Civil law is a legal system originating in mainland Europe and adopted in much of the world. The civil law system is intellectualized within the framework of Roman law, and with core principles codified into a referable system, which serves as the primary source of law. The civil law system is often contrasted with the common law system, which originated in medieval England, whose intellectual framework historically came from uncodified judge-made case law, and gives precedential authority to prior court decisions.
Abd el-Razzak el-Sanhuri or ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Sanhūrī was an Egyptian jurist, law professor, judge and politician. He is best remembered as the primary author of the revised Egyptian Civil Code of 1948. Al-Sanhūrī's multi-volume masterwork, Al-Wasīṭ fī sharḥ al-qānūn al-madanī al-jadīd, a comprehensive commentary on the Egyptian Civil Code of 1948 and on civil law more generally, published during 1952-1970, remains in print and is highly regarded in legal and juristic professions throughout the Arab world. Al-Sanhūrī was Minister of Education in the Cabinet of Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha from 1945-1946 and again from late 1946 to 1948. He was subsequently appointed as President of the Egyptian Council of State. Al-Sanhūrī's tenure as President of the Council of State lasted until 1954, when he was dismissed by coercion. He has been described as "a personality of unique embroidery, never to reoccur". An avowed advocate of Arab unity, al-Sanhūrī was notably active in the legal and institutional reforms of different Arab countries throughout most of his adult life. He presided over a committee which drafted the Iraqi Civil Code, while at the same time serving as dean of the Baghdad Law School, from 1935 to 1937. He also contributed to a drafting project of a Syrian civil code throughout the early 1940s. Al-Sanhūrī also drafted various public and private laws of Kuwait, Sudan, Libya and Bahrain.
The judicial system of Egypt is an independent branch of the Egyptian government which includes both secular and religious courts.
The Republic of Iraq's legal system is in a period of transition in light of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that led to the fall of the Baath Party. Iraq does have a written constitution, as well as a civil, criminal and personal status law. In September 2008, the Iraqi Legal Database, a comprehensive database that makes all Iraqi positive law freely available to users online, was launched.
Ali Abdel Raziq (1888–1966) was an Egyptian scholar of Islam, judge and government minister. His writings, some controversial, debated the role of religion and Islamic history in 20th-century politics and government.
Political naturalism is a political ideology and legal system which believes that there is a natural law, just and obvious to all, that crosses ideologies, faiths and personal thinking, that naturally guaranties justice. It is inspired by sociological naturalism, and scientific naturalism's belief that the precision of natural sciences can be applied to social sciences, and hence to practical social activities like politics and law.
Palestinian law is the law administered by the Palestinian National Authority within the territory pursuant to the Oslo Accords. It has an unusually unsettled status, as of 2021, due to the complex legal history of the area. Palestinian law includes many of the legal regimes and precepts used in Palestinian ruled territory and administered by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which is not an independent nation-state.
The Mixed Courts of Egypt were founded in October 1875 by the Khedive Isma'il Pasha. Designed by Nubar Nubarian Pasha to be part of the Khedive's great plans for Egypt, the Mixed Courts led to a radical reform of Egypt's chaotic nineteenth century legal system, where Consular courts competed with Government tribunals and religious courts for jurisdiction. The completion of the Suez Canal (1869) and the development of the cotton trade had attracted many foreign interests and foreign nationals to Egypt.
The law of Libya has historically been influenced by Ottoman, French, Italian, and Egyptian sources. Under the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Libya has moved towards a legal system based on sharia, but with various deviations from it.
Since the early Islamic states of the eighth and ninth centuries, Sharia always existed alongside other normative systems.
The Ottoman Empire was governed by different sets of laws during its existence. The Qanun, sultanic law, co-existed with religious law. Legal administration in the Ottoman Empire was part of a larger scheme of balancing central and local authority. Ottoman power revolved crucially around the administration of the rights to land, which gave a space for the local authority develop the needs of the local millet. The jurisdictional complexity of the Ottoman Empire was aimed to permit the integration of culturally and religiously different groups.
Sobhi R. Mahmassani was a Lebanese legal scholar, practising lawyer, judge, and political figure helped to build the legal and civic foundations of the then-nascent country of Lebanon, and whose writings on Islamic jurisprudence remain authoritative works on this topic for legal scholars and researchers.
Beginning in the latter half of the 19th century, the Nizamiye Courts were a secular court system introduced within the Ottoman Empire during the Tanzimat era. This court system was administered under the Ottoman Ministry of Justice. Although secular, the Mecelle was eventually applied to the courts. This court system drew much influence from French models at the time. These courts enabled the further growth of legal pluralism within Ottoman jurisprudence.
