On Dec. 7 the Library's African and Middle Eastern Division and the Office of Scholarly Programs co-sponsored a conference on "Globalization and Law in Muslim Societies." The conference was part of a series of symposia on globalization in Muslim societies made possible by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
The keynote speaker, Ibrahim Shihata, who retired in 2000 from the World Bank, where he was senior vice president and general counsel, was introduced by Carolyn Brown, assistant librarian for Library Services and acting director of Area Studies Collections. Mr. Shihata's address, "Globalization and Islamic Law: Some Comments," provided a broad picture of the development of Muslim law as it adapted to the requirements of international trade over the centuries. He pointed out that a number of commercial terms that are used even today come from the Arabic, such as the word "check" from the Arabic "saq."
With the subsequent introduction of Western law in many Muslim countries, Islamic law became isolated from the new social realities and confined primarily to matters of personal status, inheritance, legacy and waqf (religious trust). The Islamic law of transactions, however, could be readily adapted to modern conditions, Mr. Shihata argued, especially if its rules are codified to allow for uniform application. He concluded that "Islamic countries cannot, and should not, insulate their respective economies from the world economy. … They should take full advantage of the unprecedented expansion in world trade and investment, fully recognizing the monetary value of time and reflecting it in their transactions."
The first panel, "Muslims in Courts," was chaired by Ms. Brown and included Lawrence Rosen, chair of the Anthropology Department at Princeton University; Azizah al-Hibri, professor of law at the University of Richmond; and Richard Freeland, a lawyer, journalist and visiting researcher in the Islamic Legal Studies Program of the Harvard Law School. The panel focused on a micro level, on personal-status laws in the United States and the Muslim world. The dominant argument was that with globalization and the increase in the number of cases of intermarriage between members of societies with different systems of law, both Muslim and Western laws are accommodating the new needs arising from the application of different laws when those marriages fail.
The second panel looked at changes occurring at the macro level in the Middle East. It focused on "Islamic Law and Trade, Governance and Human Rights."
Frank E. Vogel, director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program at the Harvard Law School, discussed the persistence of Islamic commercial law in a number of countries of the region, including Saudi Arabia, despite the changes introduced by globalization.
David L. Khairallah, former deputy legal counsel at the World Bank and now with the law firm of White and Case, was critical of the political systems in the region but maintained that globalization is accelerating change "toward a rational participatory system of government where rulers are accountable and citizens enjoy basic rights and freedoms and are fully protected by the rule of law."
Finally, Maryam Elahi, director of the Human Rights Program at Trinity College in Connecticut, argued that, although human rights organizations in the Middle East are led by the elite and focus primarily on a narrow range of issues such as the fate of political prisoners, globalization has made it possible for such organizations to receive resources, recognition and support from international organizations and states.
The afternoon panel, chaired by Prosser Gifford, the Library's director of the Office of Scholarly Programs, focused on case studies meant to illustrate how globalization has affected legal systems and the study and practice of law in the Muslim world.
Don Wallace Jr., professor of Law at Georgetown University, was very critical of both Egypt's and Turkey's ability to let the private sector operate independently. He talked of the need to allow lawyers involved in commercial disputes to work freely to settle matters without state interference and maintained that pressures from global institutions such as the World Trade Organization would eventually make that possible.
The case of Malaysia was presented by Osman Bin Bakar, chair of Islam in Southeast Asia and visiting professor at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. He argued that the country was moving aggressively to be in the forefront of the communications revolution, even creating a multimedia city, Cyberjaya, to service not only Malaysia but other parts of Southeast Asia as well. To placate Islamic religious institutions that view the impact of globalization as a form of cultural invasion from the West, the Malaysian government built a beautiful, high-tech multimedia mosque at the center of the new city.
The last presentation was made by Lesley Wilkins, bibliographer for law of the Islamic World at the Harvard Law School Library, who described the enormous number of sources on Islamic law now available online and the materials made available not only by academic and religious institutions but also by various Islamic groups around the world.
