SHARIAsource

This entry provides a definition and analysis of the term ḥadīth, drawing on works by SHARIAsource Senior Scholar, Joseph Lowry, Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania.

This document shows the ruling made by Judge Datuk Hanipah Farikullah of Malaysia’s Federal High Court that only the Syariah Court has the power to decide on the validity of the Selangor fatwā that labelled the activist organization Sisters In Islam (SIS Forum) as a “deviant group” for promoting “liberalism” and “religious pluralism.” This ruling shows the grounds on which the decision was made that the [civil] High Court does not have jurisdiction to hear the Sister in Islam’s application for judicial review to challenge the validity of the fatwā issued by the Selangor Fatwa Committee.

The Malaysian Supreme Court case of Che Omar bin Che Soh v. Public Prosecutor arose as an appeal of the mandatory death sentences issued to three men sentenced for either drug or firearms crimes under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 or the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act 1971, respectively. In their appeal, the men argued that their mandatory death sentences were unislamic and therefore unconstitutional under Article 3 of the Malaysian constitution which established Islam as the official religion of Malaysia. Following an analysis of the constitution’s text and the historical context in which the constitution was written, the Supreme Court found that its framers could not have intended Article 3 to mean that all laws contrary to Islam would be void. Thus, the Court rejected the appellants' argument.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) in Delhi, India responded to the Karnataka High Court’s decision that ḥijāb, or wearing a headscarf,  is not "essential" in Islam, and that state colleges were authorized to ban Muslim women from wearing it on their campuses.  The General Secretary of the AIMPLB, Hazrat Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani Sahab, responded that hijāb is in fact an essential and agreed-upon part of Islamic law and practice (sharīʿa) and that some form of it is obligatory, or wājib, for every Muslim woman.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) in Lucknow, India responded to the Karnataka High Court’s decision that ḥijāb is not "essential" in Islam, and that state colleges are authorized to bar Muslim women from wearing it. The Board states that the High Court’s verdict contradicted Article 15 of the Indian Constitution, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, gender, caste, class, or place of birth, and guarantees individual liberty to all citizens, as well as the right to identity. They thus conclude that this decision is an injustice against the constitutional freedoms of Indian citizens. The Board also expresses concern with secular state courts making decisions on what is or is not essential religious practice, stating that “it is not in the jurisdiction of the courts to decide this but that of the ulemas [sic] and scholars.” They further note that the Indian Constitution accords every individual the right to determine what is essential in their religion. On a related matter, they add that the establishment of a common Uniform Civil Code—as has been further proposed—in a multi-religious country will interfere in the fundamental rights of religious freedom, and further negatively impact the religious and individual rights and freedoms of Muslim citizens in Indian. 

In response to the decision that the Federal (civil) High Court holds jurisdiction over syariah courts on the matter of legal custody in Indira Gandhi Mutho v. Pengarah Jabatan Agama Islam Perak & ORS (2013), Pathmanathan Krishnan successfully appealed his case in 2015 to the Civil Court of Appeals in Pathmanathan Krishnan v. Indira Gandhi Mutho & Other Appeals (2015). The Court of Appeals held that first, the Judicial Commissioner had no jurisdiction to determine the issue of the children’s conversion to Islam as the validity of the conversion of any person to the religion of Islam and status of whether a person is a Muslim or not was “a matter falling under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Shariah Court under section 50 of the Administration of the Religion of Islam (Perak) Enactment 2004.” Secondly, the court held that the learned Judicial Commissioner had “committed a grave error when he approached the jurisdiction issue” by venturing into the constitutional construct of the fundamental liberties.

In Javed & Ors. v. State of Haryana & Ors.,[1] the Supreme Court of India (the “Court”) considers whether a non-retroactive state law barring elected members of various local governments from having more than two children is violative of various articles of the Indian Constitution (the “Constitution”). The law was challenged by disqualified candidates who argued that the law was discriminatory, arbitrary and unreasonable, that it violated fundamental rights per Article 21, and interfered with religious freedom guarantees in Article 25.[2] The Court holds that the law is reasonable and not arbitrary or discriminatory given India’s overpopulation problem and the perception of a clear nexus between reducing population and encouraging local leaders to be role models.[3] The Court also holds that contesting and holding elected office are not fundamental rights, and even if they were, the public health limitation would mean that the law does not encroach on such rights.[4] But the focus of this paper is on the Court’s analysis with respect to religious freedom, where the Court in effect holds that the public health and welfare limitation must govern and that regardless, polygamy, and having more than two children is not an “integral part” of Islam and there is no conflict with the Muslim personal law.[5]

[1] Javed & Ors. v. State of Haryana & Ors. (2003) 8 SCC 369 (India).

[2] Supra note 2 (Article 25 of the Indian Constitution is analogous to the American 1^st amendment’s religious freedom protections, but with an explicit public health limitation).

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] See id. (India has separate personal codes addressing matters such as marriage for different religious communities..

In this paper, Muftī Faraz Adam considers whether Bitcoin can be considered currency in Islamic law by interpreting relevant classical legal texts with the aim of identifying the principles defining money in Islamic law. He identifies three necessary elements for currency to be money: that it constitute māl (wealth), taqawwum (legal value) and thamaniyya (monetary usage in exchange markets). He determines that Bitcoin constitutes wealth (māl) and has legal value (taqawwum), However, he determines that it cannot be considered to possess valid or stable monetary usage (thamaniyya) due to its volatility and associated risks. Muftī Adam further determines that this form of cryptocurrency does not pass the principle of preservation of wealth (hifẓ al-māl) that form part of the fundamental objectives of Islamic law (maqāṣid al-sharīʿa) and its associated values of justice or equity (‘adl).

This 2013 case is part of an ongoing legal custody battle in Malaysia between a Hindu woman, Indira Gandhi Mutho against her former husband Pathmanathan Krishnan, who converted from Hinduism to Islam in 2009. In this case, the [civil] Federal High Court ruled that the conversion certificates of Gandhi’s children to Islam should be declared null and void because Krishnan had not converted the three children aged twelve, eleven, and eleven months to Islam in accordance with the Administration of the Religion of Islam (Perak) Enactment 2004. The Federal High Court also reasoned that the applicant’s rights were upheld through international rights and standards, and articles 11 and 12(4) in the Federal Constitution. Significantly, the Federal High Court also claimed that it held jurisdiction over the syariah courts on this matter.

The Constitution of Pakistan was drafted in 1973 and remains the country's current constitution. 

English translation of the 1989 Constitution of Iran (1979 Constitutional Law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as amended to 1989).

English translation of the 2012 Constitution of Mauritania (1991 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, as amended to 2012).

English text of the 2015 Constitution of Pakistan (1973 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as amended to 2015).

English text of the 2017 Constitution of Pakistan (1973 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as amended to 2017).

Plaintiff Kevin Murray, an American taxpayer, sued Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve, arguing that the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA), which established the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by allowing funds to be used to support companies that invest in sharīʿa-compliant financial instruments. Applying the Lemon Test to assess whether there was excessive entanglement between religion and state related to Islamic financial instruments, the Court concluded that there was not; specifically, it determined that the Islamic financial instruments comprised only a small percentage of the complete business portfolio, that the purpose of the EESA was not religious, and that the primary effect of utilizing the Islamic financial instruments did not support or hinder any religion. Accordingly, the Court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants.

Plaintiff Kevin Murray, an American taxpayer, sued Treasury Secretary Geithner and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, challenging use of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds created by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) to bailout AIG, a “market leader in Sharia-compliant financing.” The Court denied summary judgment in favor of the defendant, finding that the bailout of AIG by the government may raise First Amendment Establishment Clause issues. This decision was overturned in a 2011 appeal, in which this same Court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, holding that the plaintiff had not made out a sufficient case that would allow a jury to conclude, under the Lemon Test (which assesses whether there is excessive entanglement of the Government with religion) that the Treasury Secretary violated the Establishment Clause by allowing AIG investment in sharīʿa-compliant financial instruments.

The latest Constitution of Iran which entered into force in 1979 and contains 177 articles].

Plaintiff Andre Harvey, a Muslim inmate at the David Wade Correctional Center, filed this action against the Respondent, Chaplain Ray Anderson, for allegedly removing the Plaintiff from the list on inmates approved to receive a religious diet and for denying him access to the Islamic community chapel. The Respondent filed a motion for summary judgment, and the Plaintiff did not file any response.  The Magistrate judge determined that the Respondent did not remove the Plaintiff from the list without cause, but instead that the Plaintiff himself failed to attend Friday prayer services and continued to not attend religious events, thereby warranting his removal from a list of Muslim inmates. The Magistrate judge therefore recommended that the motion for summary judgment be granted, and the complaint be dismissed with prejudice.

Summary for a case in which the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town declared the 1953 Wills Act inconsistent with the South Africa Constitution, because the statute’s provisions were previously interpreted to recognize only legal marriage and not Muslim marriages.

English text of the 1962 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.