Islamic Law and Politics in Asia

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2011:

Visit the Melbourne Law Masters website for more information about this subject.

This subject examines the relationship between the modern nation state and Islam in Asia, focusing on the 240 million Muslims in Australia’s South East Asian neighbourhood, but offering some coverage also of South and Central Asia. Islam does not recognise a distinction between religion and law because both are derived from God’s revealed message, written in Arabic in seventh-century Arabia. The result is an inevitable tension between Islamic belief and the modern (secular) nation state that lies at the heart of the politics of Islamic law in Asia. This tension, and the legal, political and social controversies that result from it, are the focus of this subject, which is based on selected comparative case studies.

Principal topics will include:

• How the original Arabic-derived legal thought has been adapted in new Asian homelands
• The essential position of Islamic legal traditions as an alternative authority to the contemporary nation-state
• Current political and religious controversies arising in South East Asia. These will be selected from a range that may include:
  • Islamic legal codes and laws for Muslims
  • The Qadi, Islamic judicial traditions and courts for Muslims
  • Islamic criminal punishment
  • Interest-free banking, ‘Islamic economics’ and commercial law
  • Islamic approaches to the status of women (fiqh Al-Nisa)
  • Zakat and other forms of philanthropy
  • Education and the role of Madrasa and Pesantren
  • The introduction of revivalist Islamic codes
  • Islamic radicalism and terrorist groups in South East Asia, including Darul Islam, Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda.

A student who has successfully completed this subject should:

• Have an understanding of the history and development of Islamic legal traditions and jurisprudence in Asia
• Have an understanding of the role of Islam in modern law and politics, with a focus on selected states in the Asian region
• Understand the tensions between Islamic scholarship, law and religious belief on the one hand and, on the other, the notion of the secular nation state.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.