The Islamization of Criminal Law: a Comparative Analysis

Abstract

THE ISLAMIZATION OF CRIMINAL LAW: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BY RUDOLPH PETERS Amsterdam With the exception of a few states on the Arabian Peninsula, the legal systems prevailing in the Islamic world are almost entirely based on Western law. Western codes were adopted during the second half of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Only the law concerning personal status, succession and religious foundations is rooted in Islamic law, the Shari"a. This situation is a thorn in the flesh of Islamic opposition movements, whose political in- fluence has recently been waxing. They regard the Western charac- ter of the law applied