> 1. The sharia of colonial times did not embrace the realm of criminality for obvious reasons. That would have undercut the ability of European colonial authorities to criminalize and prosecute infractions as a way of keeping control and enforcing colonial order. That would have created a parallel judicial system outside the purview of colonial law and outside European appellate oversight. No colonial power would have allowed that. Accordingly, they limited Sharia to family matters and crafted European-modeled secular legal institutions to deal with criminality. I work on Northern Nigeria, where this was a big issue. In a few cases where the British allowed the application of sharia to criminal infractions committed in family settings, the ensuing scandal of sharia-prescribed public floggings forced the British to withdraw their permission. In other African contexts, the colonialists were more proactive, banning the criminal aspects of sharia law and their prescribed punishment ab initio under the guise of not tolerating punishments that "offended Victorian morality."
According to everything else I've ever read about sharia law in colonial Northern Nigeria it was only on the eve of independence that sharia law was restricted to civil law only, but that sharia law, minus punishments that might have been considered "cruel or unusual" by 20th century British Law, was applied throughout colonialism in Emirate areas of Northern Nigeria. Given the origins of Common Law from Anglo-Saxon tribal law, incorporating sharia law within Common Law as a sort of traditional law the way 'urf was incorporated into Islamic law doesn't seem very strange.
Reading over this paragraph again I get the impression you are making the common confusion between Islamic law and certain punishments, as if there were nothing to Islamic law and legal procedure besides those punishments. You do understand that there are other aspects to Islamic law besides amputation, flogging, stoning etc.?
John Edward Philips <http://human.cc.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/philips/>
International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University
"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer
<http://www.boydell.co.uk/www.urpress.com/80462561.HTM>
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment