The Function and Challenges of Sharia Court in Applications of Islamic Law in Ethiopia

The discourse on sharia courts, fraught as it is with a plethora of complexities is one of the most challenging, yet compelling domain of disquisition and articulation within contemporary socio legal debate and research agenda.

The sharia courts as socio-religious institutions provide a voluntary, empowering way of resolving familial disputes of members of Muslim community in an informal way. In ethiopia, Since the imperial period the functions of the qadi have not changed much in as much as he still remains responsible for performing or settling disputes according to sharia principles and balancing rights and duties that Muslims owe to „Allah‟. However, Implementation of Islamic law, sharia courts would have face challenges is seen as especially troubling, standing in the way of any liberalization and the embrace of human rights. The problem of application of sharia law in Ethiopia, exist in the sharia court establishment proclamation regard the recruitment of qadsti, there is no any examining procedure whether the person have deep understanding Islamic law, rather it requires that the mere religion knowledge of the person. In addition, in traditionalist society regarding women’s right, , they consider and follow sharia as attached to their cultures. So, lack of awareness and perception towards to sharia law, women are refused to bring their case before sharia court fearing that the qadis himself similar to that of the traditional elders who does not provide more property share as ordinary law so requires. therefore, all this problem should be solved starting from recruitment the qadis base on their knowledge of Quran and hadith. There must be, a codified and independent procedural laws concerning the issues under the jurisdiction of Islamic shari’ah courts in general.

Bibliographic Information

Title: The Function and Challenges of Sharia Court in Applications of Islamic Law in Ethiopia: The cases of Hararghe Sharia Courts.

Author(s): Dursa Aliyi

Published in: Academia.edu

 Language: English

Length: 21 page

The_Function_and_Challenges_of_Sharia Court in Applications of Islamic Law in Ethiopia