Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity - Hardcover

Rainer Grote; Tilmann J. Röder

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019975988X ISBN 13: 9780199759880

Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR, 2012

Synopsis

Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity examines the question of whether something similar to an "Islamic constitutionalism" has emerged out of the political and constitutional upheaval witnessed in many parts of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Southern Asia in order to identify its defining features and to assess the challenges it poses to established concepts of constitutionalism. This book offers an integrated analysis of the constitutional experience of Islamic countries, drawing on the methods and insights of comparative constitutional law, Islamic law, international law and legal history. European and United States experiences are used as points of reference against which the peculiar challenges, and the specific answers given to those challenges in the countries surveyed, can be assessed. Whether these concepts can be applied successfully to the often grim political and social realities of their countries will provide invaluable insights into whether such a fusion can be sustained, and may even pave the way for a new era of constitutionalism in Islamic countries.

About this title

Review:

"This is an ambitious, almost brash, collection. It seeks to bring together historical, legal, religious, political, and philosophical analysis in order to understand both the relationship between Islam and constitutionalism and the actual constitutional experiences of Muslim societies. The editors and contributors are to be commended for pooling their efforts to produce both breadth and depth. This will be a standard reference on the subject for many years to come."
--Nathan J. Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University

"This volume is, without a doubt, the new standard for the field of constitutionalism and Islamic law. It is comprehensive in scope, sophisticated in its application and subtle in its identification of problems. It gathers in one place the absolute top authorities on the historical, conceptual, legal and political dimensions of constitutionalism in the Muslim world. There is no other single volume which comes close to accomplishing what this one has."
--Andrew March, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University

"This book is a solid, comprehensive, and enticing contribution to constitutionalism in the Muslim world. Some chapters provide novel and detailed studies of countries which have rarely been the subject of serious interest, and others revisit the experience of modern constitutionalism in places like Iran and Egypt with a fresh view drawn from the experience of constitutional courts and councils. Röder and Grote have succeeded in bringing in one volume an impressive collection of scholarly contributions in an understudied and crucial field at a time of great upheaval-and great need-in the Middle East and the Muslim world at large."
--Chibli Mallat, The Custodian of the Two Holy Places Visiting Professor in Islamic Legal Studies, Harvard Law School

"This volume presents a solid basis for further insight and research and should feature in any library dedicated to constitutionalism or the constitutions in the region." -Arab Regional Forum News, Dr. Achim-Rüdiger Börner, Attorney at law, Cologne

About the Author:

Prov.-Doz. Dr. Rainer Grote, LL.M. is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Public Comparative Law and Public International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. He worked as a legal adviser in the Department of Legal Affairs of the German Ministry of Foreign Relations in Berlin and taught international law at the University Panthéon-Assas Paris II. He holds a doctorate degree from the University of Göttingen. Dr. Tilmann J. Röder is a Head of the Middle East and Central Asia Projects of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. His recent research has focused on Afghanistan, Libya, Israel/Palestine, Iran, Azerbaijan, Sudan, Somalia and Kashmir. He has published essays on the subject of constitution building and he has been involved in an ongoing series of lectures on Law & Development. He holds a law degree from Humboldt University and a doctorate degree from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University.

About this edition

• Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 019975988X
• ISBN 13: 9780199759880
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 756