Muslim Law in Israel

Pablo Lerner is a professor of law at the Zefat Academic College and the College of Law and Business in Ramat-Gan (Israel).

Muslim law in Israel is only part of a broader issue: the status of Muslims as a minority in the Jewish state. In contrast to other non-Muslim-majority countries, in Israel, Muslims are a minority not as a consequence of immigration but as a result of the 1948 war. Since then, Muslims have struggled for recognition and to strengthen their collective identity in Israel. Accordingly, Muslim law (Sharia) has played an important role as a cultural and sociological aspect of their Muslim and Palestinian-Israeli identity. While this brief post cannot fully explore the complexity of the Muslim-minority issue, it does discuss the legal aspect and addresses several questions about the relationship between the Israeli legal system and Muslim law.

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Islamic Law in the United Kingdom

Brandon Reece Taylorian is an associate lecturer and researcher at the University of Lancashire (UK).

Although the Church of England remains England’s established church and receives special privileges, such as being represented by 26 Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords, the United Kingdom (UK) as a whole is governed under secular laws.[1] While there is no clear separation of church and state enshrined in UK legislation, protections have been created for religious minorities who faced severe discrimination and persecution in previous centuries.[2] The first Muslim community to arrive on British shores comprised sailors recruited in India to work for the East India Company in the sixteenth century. Large-scale immigration of Muslims to Britain began in the post–World War II period, with Muslim migrants from former British colonies—predominantly Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan—recruited in large numbers to help rebuild the country.[3] While these Muslim communities, diverse in themselves, largely integrated with British culture, they naturally sought to maintain their cultural and religious identities. One way they have pursued this is by establishing Sharia councils.

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Sharia Court Adjudication: Gendered Perspective

Kyriaki Topidi is head of Cluster on Culture and Diversity/senior researcher at the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI, Germany).

Background: Application of Sharia in Greece

The intensified presence of Muslim groups in Western Europe resulting from recent migration has largely overshadowed reflection, in both political and research terms, on legal pluralist scenarios involving historical Muslim minorities in European countries. In Western Thrace, at the northeastern tip of Greece bordering Turkey, Muslim groups have enjoyed special legal status connected to the legacies of the Ottoman Empire, captured in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[1] State-endorsed Muslim autonomy in Greece has entailed, in particular, government-appointed muftis with (until 2018 legislative amendments) compulsory jurisdiction in certain family matters.

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