Juristic Authority vs. State Power: The Legal Crises of Modern Islam
To say that authority is the cornerstone of any law or legal system is to state the obvious. Authority not only defines the law but in effect constitutes it formally and substantively. There can be no functioning law or legal system without an underlying structure of authority that may in turn deriv...
| Published in: | Journal of law and religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2004
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| In: |
Journal of law and religion
Year: 2004, Volume: 19, Issue: 2, Pages: 243-258 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | To say that authority is the cornerstone of any law or legal system is to state the obvious. Authority not only defines the law but in effect constitutes it formally and substantively. There can be no functioning law or legal system without an underlying structure of authority that may in turn derive from another power-based or authority-based substrate, such as a state. This much we take for granted.Although it is commonplace for the Western lawyer or jurist to view the state as a body wielding and exercising legal authority, such a view is neither obvious nor normative for his Muslim counterpart, and even less obvious by far to the Muslim masses around the world. Yet, paradoxically, the great majority of today's Muslim countries run their legal systems on the operative—and very concrete—assumption that it is the state that produces legal authority. In other words, within the national body politic of each modern Muslim country there lies a source of legal power that presumably legitimizes and enforces both the public actions of the law and the provisions that govern the private sphere. |
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| ISSN: | 2163-3088 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of law and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3649176 |