ABSTRACT

There are two different and distinct ways to address the legal other in Islamic law. The first, which is animated by the concept of ‘jurisdiction’, concerns the place of other legal traditions within Islamic law. A typical situation might involve whether and to what extent an imagined ‘domestic’ Shariʿa court would resolve a dispute that originated in a foreign jurisdiction. The second concerns the ‘religious other’ living in Islamic lands governed by Islamic law. In both cases, premodern Muslim jurists imagined the foreign law and the religious other as appearing before a ‘domestic’ court in Islamic lands. This chapter will examine both approaches to the ‘legal other’ in Islamic law.