Making Recommendations based on Revelation and Reason: The Challenge before Justice Saleem Marsoof’s Muslim Personal Law Reforms Committee
Featured image courtesy Maatram
CHULANI KODIKARA on 05/01/2017
In the current debate about reform of the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act of 1956 (MMDA), those opposed to reform are arguing that all reform must be consistent with the Shariah – or to be more precise their own interpretation of the Shariah. Moreover, that all reform must be in accordance with the Shafi school of law. I argue that the making of Muslim law in any given context is very much a human act of interpretation, and therefore subjective, selective and creative, albeit based on knowledge of the sources of law as well as hermeneutics (theory and methods of interpretation) of law. As Coulson, one of the foremost scholars of Muslim law, points out: