Secular paradox
Subtitle: Islam, sovereignty, and the rule of law in modern Egypt
By: Hussein Ali Agrama
Series: Chicago studies in practices of meaning; Chicago studies in practices of meaning
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 281
ISBN-13: 9780226010687; 9780226010694; 9780226010700
Subjects: Islamic law; Trials, litigation; Rule of law; Fatwas; Islam and state
Description: What, exactly, is secularism? What has the West's long familiarity with it inevitably obscured? In this work, Hussein Ali Agrama tackles these questions. Focusing on the fatwa councils and family law courts of Egypt just prior to the revolution, he delves deeply into the meaning of secularism itself and the ambiguities that lie at its heart.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: a secular or a religious state?; title: The legalization of hisba in the case of Nasr Abu Zayd; title: The indeterminacies of secular power: sovereignty, public order, and family; title: A paradox of Islamic authority in modern Egypt; title: Law's suspicion; title: What is a fatwa?: authority, tradition, and the care of self; title: Islamist lawyers in the Egyptian emergency state: a different language of justice?