The Sociology of Shari’a: Case Studies from Around the World(Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies)

This edited collection focuses on the comparative analysis of the application of Shari’a in countries with Muslim minorities (e.g. USA, Australia, Germany and Italy) and majorities (e.g. Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Morocco). Most chapters in this new edition have been revised and the book as a whole has been updated to give even more international coverage.   This text provides a sociological and global analysis of a phenomenon that goes beyond the ‘West versus the rest’ dichotomy. One example of this is how included are case studies in Muslim minority countries not exclusively located in the West.  Although the contributors of this book come from various disciplines such as law, anthropology, and sociology, this volume has a strong sociological focus on the analysis of Shari’a. The final part of the book indeed draws out from all the case studies explored some ground-breaking theories on the sociology of Shari’a such as the application of Black, Chambliss and Eisenstein’s sociological theories.  This text appeals to students and researchers working in the sociology of religion.  

Table of Contents:
Introduction.- 1.Legal Pluralism and Shari’a.- Part 1: Case Studies from Muslim Majority Countries.- 2.One State, Three Legal Systems: Negotiating justice in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Malaysia.- 3.Modern Law, Traditional “Salish” and Civil Society Activism in Bangladesh.- 4.Semi-official Turkish Muslim Legal Pluralism: Encounters Between Secular Official Law and Unofficial Shari’a.- 5. Legal Pragmatism in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Roots and Challenges.- 6. Equivocal Attitudes to Religion in Moroccan Law and Society.- Part 2: Case Studies from Muslim Minority Countries.- 7.Social Diversity and Legal Regulation: The Case of Singapore.- 8.Shari’a Courts in the Philippines: Women, Men and Muslim Personal Laws.- 9.Shari’a and Muslim Women’s Agency in a Multicultural Context: Recent Changes in Sports Culture.- 10.Shari’a Law in Catholic Italy: A non-agnostic model of accommodation.- 11.Trial and Error in Affiliation –Muslims and Shari’a in Germany.- 12.Between the Sacred and the Secular: Living Islam in China.- 13.The Case of the Recognition of Muslim Personal Law in South Africa: Colonialism, Apartheid and Constitutional Democracy.- 14.The Politics of Religion and Culture: Analysing the role of ‘cultural experts’ and the rise of ‘Islamic legal services’ in the UK.- 15.France, Laïcité, and Islam: Where Ignorant Armies Clash by Night.- Part 3: Theoretical and Comparative Considerations.- 16.The Mutable Meanings of Sharia: From “Path” to Politics.- 17.The constitutionalisation of Shari’a: Comparing Indonesia, Tunisia and Egypt.- 18.Contradictions, Conflicts, Dilemmas and Temporary Resolutions: A Sociology of Law Analysis of Shari’a in Selected Western Countries.- 19.Shari’a and Multiple Modernities in Western Countries:Toward a Multi-Faith Pragmatic Modern Approach Rather Than a Legal Pluralist One?.- Conclusion.- 20.The Future of Legal Pluralism.

About the Author :
Adam Possamai is professor in Sociology and Deputy Dean of the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. He is the (co)author and (co)editor of 20 books, and close to 100 articles and book chapters. He is a former President of Research Committee 22 on the Sociology of Religion from the International Sociological Association, and a former President of the Australian Association for the Study of Religions. His work has been published in English, French, Spanish, Romanian and Slovakian. He was a visiting scholar at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. James T. Richardson, J.D., Ph.D. is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he directed the Judicial Studies graduate degree program for trial judges, and also was a faculty member in the Sociology Department and in the Social Psychology doctoral program. He has published nearly 300 articles and book chapters in his career, mostly about new and minority religious groups, including Islam in western countries. He has been a Fulbright Fellow, a Rockefeller Fellow, and has been a formal visitor at universities in England, the Netherlands, and Australia. He has made presentations in over 30 countries during his career. He has served as President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and the American Association of University Professors. Bryan S. Turner is Professor of Sociology at the Australian Catholic University He was the Alona Evans Distinguished Visiting Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College (2009-10). His publications in the sociology of religion include Weber and Islam (1974), Religion and Social Theory (1983), (with Kamaludeen and Pereira) Muslims in Singapore (2010) and Religion and Modern Society (2011). He is the foundingeditor of the journal Citizenship Studies and with John O'Neill of the Journal of Classical Sociology. With Anthony Elliot, he published On Society (2012). From 1998-2005 he was professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He edited the Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (2006), and was awarded a doctor of letters by the University in 2009.