Applied Family Law in Islamic Courts: Shari’a Courts in Gaza

Written from an ethnographic perspective, the book, Applied Family Law in Islamic Courts: Shari’a Courts in Gaza, investigates the socio-legal aspects of Islamic jurisprudence in Gaza-Palestine.

Written from an ethnographic perspective, this book investigates the socio-legal aspects of Islamic jurisprudence in Gaza-Palestine. It examines the way judges, lawyers and litigants operate with respect to the law and with each other, particularly given their different positions in the power structure within the court and within society at large. The book aims at elucidating ambivalences in the codified statutes that allow the actors to find practical solutions to their (often) legally unresolved problems and to manipulate the law. The book demonstrates that present-day judges are not only confronted with novel questions they have to find an answer to, but, perhaps more importantly, they are confronted with contradictions between the letter of codified law and their own notions of justice. The author reminds us that these notions of justice should not be set a priori; they are socially constructed in particular time and space.

About the Author

Nahda Shehada is Senior Lecturer in Gender, Culture and Development at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her major area of interest is anthropology of Islamic law, particularly in the MENA region. She has published widely in books and leading international academic journals focussing on Islamic law.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Islamic Jurisprudence Now, and Then

Chapter 3: The Gaza Shari‘a Courts: an Overview

Chapter 4: The Daily Practice of Judges: Perception vs Reality

Chapter 5: The Sociology of Nafaqa (Maintenance)

Chapter 6: Obedience, Rebelliousness and Agency

Chapter 7: The Articulation of Gendered Parenthood: Care vs Guardianship

Chapter 8: Civil Society, Women’s Movement and Family Law Reform

Chapter 9: Change, a Step at a Time

Chapter 10: Epilogue

Bibliographic Information

Title: Applied Family Law in Islamic Courts: Shari’a Courts in Gaza

Author: Nahda Shehada

Publisher: Routledge

Language: English

Length: 196 pages

ISBN: 9781138194670

Pub. Date: 2018-03-29