Recommended Citation
Clark B. Lombardi and Nathan J. Brown, Do Constitutions Requiring Adherence to Shari`a Threaten Human Rights? How Egypt’s Constitutional Court Reconciles Islamic Law with the Liberal Rule of Law, 21 Am. U. Int'l L. Rev. 379 (2005), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/716
Keywords
Islam, Islamic Law, International Law, Human Rights, Constitutional Law
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Over the last thirty years, a number of Muslim countries, including most recently Afghanistan and Iraq, have adopted constitutions that require the law of the state to respect fundamental Islamic legal norms. What happens when countries with a secular legal system adopt these "constitutional Islamization" provisions? How do courts interpret them? This article will present a case study of constitutional Islamization in one important and influential country, Egypt. In interpreting Egypt's constitutional Islamization provision, the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt has interpreted Shari'a norms to be consistent with international human rights norms and with liberal economic policies. The experience of Egypt does not tell us how constitutional Islamization will necessarily unfold in every country. It does demonstrate that, in a world where Islamic norms are contested, a progressive court can effectively develop and apply a theory that interprets Islamic legal norms to be consistent with democracy, international human rights and economic liberalism.