Politics of Islamic Law

"In [this book], Iza R. Hussin compares India, Malaya, and Egypt during the British colonial period in order to trace the making and transformation of the contemporary category of "Islamic law." She demonstrates that not only is Islamic law not the shari{u06E5}a, but that its present institutional forms, substantive content, symbolic vocabulary, and relationship to state and society - in short, its politics - are built upon foundations laid during the colonial encounter. Drawing on extensive archival work in English, Arabic, and Malay - from court records to colonia and local papers to private letters and visual material - Hussin offers a view of politics in the colonial period as an iterative series of negotiations between local and colonia powers in multiple locations. ... Combining a genealogy of law with a political analysis of its institutional dynamics, t his book offers an up-close-look at the ways in which global transformations are realized at the local level."--Back cover.