JJUA55080U Comparative Public Law in an Islamic Context - NOTE: THE COURSE IS CANCELLED IN THE SPRING SEMESTER 2017
This course provides a thorough survey of the constitutional
systems across the Muslim world in the modern period. Spanning all
Muslim-majority states from Morocco to Indonesia, we will explore
the transmission of institutional forms and constitutional ideas,
examine the diversity of constitutional arrangements, evaluate how
effective these arrangements are, and what role religious law plays
in the different jurisdictions.
Since 2009 there has been a renewed wave of popular unrest sweeping
throughout much of the Muslim world. Secular, but generally
repressive and inefficient autocracies have come under pressure or
been swept aside entirely. At the same time, the various Islamic
Republics have not fared much better, but have been convulsed by
internal unrest, economic and social decline.
Throughout the Muslim lands, existing constitutional arrangements
are being challenged, often very violently. After this course you
will be able to comprehend what the substantial content of these
disputes is, who the main political and institutional actors are,
how to account for startling degrees of violence, and why law plays
such a prominent role.
This course has no formal academic prerequisites and no knowledge
of Oriental languages is necessary. All literature will be in
English and made available through Absalon. Jargon is generally
avoided and necessary technical terminology will be explained in
class. The focus of our readings and discussions lies on the modern
period after 1798 – Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.
We will therefore look at the large body of classical writings on
Islamic governance only in so far as they are necessary to
understand the contemporary debate, but instead concentrate on the
legal and political developments of the 20th and 21st
centuries.
Three common themes will characterise the
course:
• We privilege the study of the legal and social reality
and seek to highlight where it is at odds with dogmatic
stipulations, be they religious or constitutional
• We seek to illustrate the practical tensions posed by
limited administrative capabilities and political legitimacy that
resulted from the incomplete reception of modern bureaucratic
statehood, especially those affecting the rule of law
• We seek to examine how popular dissatisfaction with the
practical performance of Muslim governments has fuelled
demands for greater accountability, with a particular attention to
the role of the judiciary and the use of often religious law as a
‘language of justice’ under the guise of cultural authenticity.
Ultimately, the course aims to equip participants to better
understand Muslim contemporary discourse about the res publica,
better contextualise the demands for religious law in public life,
and to better ascertain the theoretical and practical feasibility
of postulated religious alternatives to the still-dominant secular
model of governance. The course covers each week one sub-region
centred on a particularly important country, highlighting the
distinct approaches towards incorporating modern state
institutions.
Week 1:Overview:
The Challenge of Modernity
Session 1: Early Modern History of the Region
Session 2: Four Models of Adaptation
Week 2: Secularism: Turkey
Session 3: Ottoman Legal Reform: Tanzimat and Majallah
Session 4: Kemalism and its Discontents
Week 3:Religious Modernism: North Africa
Session 5: Egypt and Japan: Contrasting Legal Reform
Session 6: Morocco and Tunisia: Constitutional and Personal Status
Reform
Week 4: Traditionalism: The Gulf Monarchies
Session 7: Saudi Arabia: Patrimonial Law
Session 8: Rents and Religion: Traditional Law and Extractive
Economics
Week 5: Fundamentalism: Iran
Session 9: Roots and Results of Revolutionary: Constitutional
Contradictions
Session 10: Challenging the status quo: Between Extremism and
Pragmatism
Week 6: Fragmentation and Chaos: The
Levant
Session 11: Republics of Fear: Authoritarian Bargains and their
Constitutions
Session 12: Consociationalism: Investiture of Order in Fractioned
Societies
Week 7:Jihadi Gangsters: Afghanistan, Pakistan
and Bangladesh
Session 13: Garrison or Failed State? Common Law and Common Sense
Session 14: Legal Archaeology: The Palimpsest of Afghan Law
Week 8:Liminal Successes: Malaysia and
Indonesia
Session 15: Colonial Constitutions and the Use of Emergency Law
Session 16: Pluralist Transitions: Decentralisation, Federalism and
Democracy
Week 9: Failure to Form: Sub-Saharan Africa
Session 17: Intangible Wealth and the Importance of Administrative
Law
Session 18: African Awakening: Weak Institutions and Constitutional
Responses
Week 10: Thrown into the Void: Post-Soviet
Central Asia
Session 19: State Collapse and Authoritarianism: Secular Legacies
and Religious Visions
Session 20: Constitutional Rhetoric and Legal Realities
Week 11: Minority Regimes: India and Europe
Session 21: Indian Muslims: Personal Status Laws and Political
Engagement
Session 22: Euroislam: Uneasy Constitutional Accommodations
Week 12: Conclusions and Outlook
Session 23: Contending Visions on Blasphemy and Freedom of
Expression
Session 24: Review
At the successful completion of the course, students will have obtained the following learning objectives:
Knowledge Students will:
• Know the basic contours of the colonial history of present-day
Muslim states
• Know the divergent administrative and legal paths that led to
different state traditions
• Know the four basic responses to modernity in the Islamic world
• Know the main ideological movements and their respective
positions on public law
• Know the main differences between sacred and bureaucratic law
• Know the basic functions of government in the modern
international system
• Know how to decipher constitutional provisions and relate them to
the functional division of administrative labour
• Know the difference between dogmatic ideal, whether religious or
constitutional, and legal reality.
Skills Studentswill have learned
to:
• Read basic macro-economic, social, and governance indicators
• Evaluate the relative performance of administrative and political
systems
• Assess the importance of legal systems for economic performance
and political stability
• Identify legal and administrative shortcomings and link them to
popular dissatisfaction
• Assess the feasibility of competing ideological governance
programmes
• Carry out independent interdisciplinary research
• Communicate academic findings to an interdisciplinary audience
• Distinguish between dogmatic ideal and practical reality
• Analyse complex socio-political phenomena in current events
• Synthetize their public law implications
• Communicate these effectively.
Competencies: Students will be able to
• Conduct independent interdisciplinary research
• Critically examine the validity and reliability of scientific
data
• Disaggregate complex phenomena in the Islamic world
• Question explanatory hypotheses relating to that area
• Identify independent and intervening variables in explanatory
theories describing it
• Distinguish legal from related argumentation
• Critically assess claims about cultural and legal
immutability.
Students are expected to complete all requirements outlined for
the online component of the course, in particular the weekly
quizzes, the two short, peer-graded essays, and the relatively
modest reading requirements outlined there (ca. 200 pages). In
addition, students will be provided with weekly readings of
approximately 500 pages, drawn primarily from Otto 2010 and Grote
& Röder 2012 below. No dedicated textbook is prescribed for
this course (or, indeed, exists), but those new to the field might
find it worth their while to complement the assigned readings with
independent background readings, including from:
Malcolm Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East, 1792-1923, Vol. 1
(London: Longman, 1987).
Malcolm Yapp, The Near East Since the First World War: A History
to 1995, Vol. 2 (London: Longman, 1996).
Sami Zubaida, Law and Power in the Islamic World (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2005).
Jan Michiel Otto (ed.), Sharia Incorporated. A Comparative Overview
of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past and Present
(Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010).
Rainer Grote and Tilmann Röder (eds.),Constitutionalism in Islamic
Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012).
Albert Habib Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber
and Faber, 2005).
Nathan J. Brown, Constitutions in a Nonconstitutional World.
Arab Basic Laws and the Prospects for Accountable Government
(Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2002).
Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought: The Response of the
Shi’i and the Sunni Muslims to the Twentieth Century (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2005).
interpretations. The course will, thus, consist of both the online component and twice weekly class sessions. The online part consists of 7-8 relatively short lectures per week offered as downloadable videos (each 15-55 min), each of which will be followed by a short exercise in which participants can test their grasp of the new material. The exercises will combine multiple-choice with essay-type questions.
Participants are therefore expected to prepare the assigned readings prior to each week’s sessions. The readings will clearly differentiate between those of central and peripheral importance.
- Category
- Hours
- Preparation
- 364,5
- Seminar
- 48
- Total
- 412,5
Enrolling as a Single Master Level/ Credit Student:
For Single Master Level Courses – click here!
For Single-subject credit students - click here!
For further
information
- Credit
- 15 ECTS
- Type of assessment
- Written examination, 3 daysAssigned individual written assignment, 3 days
- Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
- Exam period
Autumn: December 2-5, 2016
Spring: June 16-19, 2017
- Re-exam
Autumn: February 3 - 6, 2017
Spring: August 11-14, 2017
Criteria for exam assesment
This course will be assessed by a written three day take-home, open book exam. Students will have to answer two questions out of six, thus accommodating to some degree personal preferences. The exam is aimed to motivate a renewed thorough engagement with the course material and to cement the retention of the stated learning outcomes, which will guide grading. Special attention should be given to the testable criteria listed in the goal description above under the heading 'Competencies'.
Course information
- Language
- English
- Course code
- JJUA55080U
- Credit
- 15 ECTS
- Level
- Full Degree MasterFull Degree Master choice
- Duration
- 1 semester
- Placement
- Spring And Autumn
- Schedule
- Please see timetable for teaching time
- Continuing and further education
- Price
DKK 15.000
- Study board
- Law
Contracting department
- Law
Course responsibles
- Ebrahim Afsah (13-706d7d6c737478396c717e6c734b75807d397680396f76)