Forthcoming August 2026
This book explores efforts undertaken by Muslims to foster new approaches to understanding sharia that are apposite for the 21st century. *Contemporary Treands in Sharia: Critical Debates in Historical Contexts *critically assesses these efforts and situates them in the broader historical context of developments since the nineteenth century. These include the transformation of the sharia from a jurist’s law to state law, the secularization of Islamic law through the judicial practice of constitutional courts and the marginalization of the ulama as exclusive interpreters of sharia.
The book also challenges misconceptions about sharia in spheres such as gender, criminal justice and human rights. Building on the earlier Understanding Sharia (2018), which explains sharia and the development of fiqhThe science of Islamic jurisprudence. (Islamic jurisprudence), the focus here is on developments in the Muslim world and the Muslim diaspora. Thought-provoking, non-sectarian and non-polemical, the book highlights the ground-breaking work of seminal thinkers in various fields of law, coupled with the authors’ analyses and commentary on their thinking. With a foreword by Dr Christophe Bernasconi, Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), Contemporary Trends in Sharia will be of great appeal to educated lay readers as well as students of law, sociology and related disciplines.
Authors’ Note
Preface (Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
Abbreviations
Foreword by Christophe Bernasconi
Acknowledgements
Introduction (Hadi Enayat and Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
- Sharia: Its Origin, Evolution and Multiple Interfaces in the History of the Muslim Peoples (Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
- Islamic Constitutionalism and its Discontents (Hadi Enayat)
- Secularism, Religious Freedom and the Sharia (Hadi Enayat)
- Criminal Justice in Islam (Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
- Gender Justice: The Rights of Women in Islam – A Need for New Hermeneutics and a New Epistemology (Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
- Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and the Politics of Informal Justice (Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
- Sharia and Human Rights: The Clash of Universalisms and the Search for Common Ground (Hadi Enayat)
- The Quest for a Moral Economy and the Vital Role of Faith and Sharia-Inspired Finance (Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
- Property Rights in Sharia: Between Social Justice and Pious Neoliberalism (Hadi Enayat)
- Muslims and Bioethics – Developments in the Field of Organ Donation and Transplantation under Sharia (Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
- Continuity and Change in the Islamic law of Jihad: Modernity and the Crisis of Political Authority (Hadi Enayat)
Epilogue (Hadi Enayat and Mohamed M. Keshavjee)
Glossary
Index
Contemporary Trends in Sharia: Critical Debates in Historical Context explores how Muslims worldwide are reinterpreting Islamic law to meet the challenges of modern life. From human rights and gender justice to economics, property, and dispute resolution, Enayat and Keshavjee demonstrate that sharia is not as rigid a code as exaggerated by some, but is a living tradition and an unfinished project. Drawing on the voices of reformist and progressive thinkers, it illuminates the creative, contested, and urgent search for justice and flourishing at the heart of Islam’s encounter with the twenty-first century. Vital reading. Professor Ebrahim Moosa, University of Notre Dame, USA
Carefully researched and clearly written, Contemporary Trends in Sharia offers a rigorous and accessible analysis of today’s key debates on Islamic law. The authors examine how modernist, progressive, and neotraditionalist thinkers have approached areas such as constitutionalism, human rights, gender, bioethics,and economics. By situating these debates in wider historical and political contexts and tracing their reception among Muslims, the book combines scholarly depth with clarity. It is an authoritative contribution to the study of Islamic law, reform, and modernity.’ Professor Abdullah Saeed, University of Melbourne, Australia
‘A timely and deeply engaging exploration of how modernist and progressive Muslim thinkers reinterpret sharia amid modern moral, political, and technological challenges and how these ideas are received by lay-Muslims. A must read for anyone seeking to understand the dynamism of modern Islamic thought.’ Professor Masooda Bano, University of Oxford, UK
For a Jew, interested in inter-faith harmony, this fascinating book opens doors of understanding, as befits sharia, which, I learn, is “the way to the watering place”. The authors have written a deeply impressive work from the point of view of a modern progressive Islam. Here the educated layperson, Muslim or non-Muslim alike, can learn of the tensions and solutions of a liberal Islamic approach to the age-old problems of a moral life, be it personal, familial, or economic, and of the ends of justice.’ Rt Hon Professor Sir Bernard Rix, Queen Mary University, UK
Hadi Enayat is Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies at the Aga KhanA title granted by the Shah of Persia to the then Ismaili Imam in 1818 and inherited by each of his successors to the Imamate. Centre in London.
He specializes in the politics of the Middle East with a particular focus on religion, law, political theology and intellectual history. He is the author of Law, State and Society in Modern Iran (Palgrave Macmillan 2013 — winner of the Biennial Mossadegh Prize 2013), Islam and Secularism in Post-Colonial Thought: A Cartography of Asadian Genealogies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), The Rule of Law in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Power, Institutions and the Limits of Reform (co-edited with Mirjam Künkler, (Cambridge University Press, 2024).
Mohamed M. Keshavjee with legal training in three common law jurisdictions – the U.K. Kenya and Ontario, Canada – is a Barrister at Law from Gray’s Inn London.
An internationally recognised specialist in cross cultural mediation, he has keynoted leading conferences on mediation in countries as diverse as Argentina, France, Lithuania, Ireland and Canada. His first co-authored book Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World received critical acclaim from various publications including the Financial Times and the Times Literary Supplement. A scholar of contemporary Islamic thought, Dr Keshavjee has specialised in family mediation, transitional justice in post-conflict societies and Indian diasporic deveopments based on the 19th century indentured labour system across the former British empire. For his commitment to peace and human rights education globally, Dr Keshavjee was awarded the 2016 Gandhi King, Ikeda peace prize.