Shari'a Law and Modern Muslim Ethics

The continuation of political turmoil in the Muslim world has provided enough justification to conduct research into the internal dynamics of unrest to discover prospects of security in a region which has great economic and political importance for its former colonializers and present stakeholders of the New Global Order. The emergence of radical groups, in the name of the Shari[ah, in Africa and the Middle East has further highlighted the importance of such research. The book under review includes eleven papers on the conceptual, historical and analytical aspects of shari[ah law and ethics as understood by the participants of a workshop initially held at Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs in March 2013. The chapters of this book cover a wide range of contemporary discussion on the role of the Shari[ah in the modern democratic order as well as in radical groups like IS and Boko Haram in West Africa, who incorrectly justify the killing of apostates and advocate the subjugation of women. Four out of the eleven contributors in this book are anthropologists, one a sociologist, two have specialization in law, two in political science and one in Near Eastern studies.