Sharia Compliant. A User’s Guide to Hacking Islamic Law

268 Pages·2018·1.21 MB·English

by  Rumee Ahmed

SHARIA COMPLIANT
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Sharia Compliant
A User’s Guide to Hacking Islamic Law
Rumee Ahmed
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©  by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University
Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN  (cloth)
ISBN  (paperback)
ISBN  (electronic)
Cover design: Angela Moody
Typeset by Motto Publishing Services in ./ Adobe Caslon Pro
For Dr. A. S. Bear, now and always
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Contents
A Letter to My Muslim Readers ix
. What Is Sharia? What Is Islamic Law? What Is Hacking? 
. Why Does Islamic Law Get Hacked? 
. Who Hacks Islamic Law? 
. How Does Islamic Law Get Patched? 
. How Does Islamic Law Get Hacked? 
. When Does Islamic Law Get Hacked? 
. Where Does Islamic Law Get Hacked? 
Afterword 
Acknowledgments 
Notes 
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A Letter to My Muslim Readers
Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong. But you already knew
that. Every Friday khutba, every lecture, every dinner discussion
about the plight of Muslims today seems to center on this founda-
tional truth of our modern existence: something’s wrong. Th e evi-
dence is clear to anyone who’s looking; from feckless leaders to sys-
tematic disempowerment to regressive institutions, we regularly and
readily acknowledge amongst ourselves that something is deeply
wrong with the current state of the Muslim community.
It’s true; something is indeed wrong, but that fact doesn’t bother
me much. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from increased connec-
tivity and globalization, it’s that every community’s got something
wrong with it. No community is free from violent factions, corrup-
tion, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and any number of other vices
that pervade corners of our community, and no community is safe
from being manipulated for political and economic gain. Th ese are
the hallmarks of most every community today, and Muslims are no
exception.
No, what bothers me is not so much the fact that something is
wrong, but the reason that our religious leaders most often give for
why something is wrong. Across diff erent countries and contexts, I
consistently hear the same diagnosis given for the problems plagu-
ing the Muslim community: we are not practicing Islam properly,
and we are not following Islamic law. If we were to follow Islamic