The Constitutional Issue and Managing the Difference between Sharia and Law

The Center for Arab Unity Studies published the book The Constitutional Issue and Managing the Difference between Sharia and Law by Dr. Mohamed Laghdaf Rhaouti.

The disagreement regarding the topic of “managing the difference between jurisprudence and contemporary legislation in the constitutional field” is not a new matter nor related to this historical stage alone. Rather, it finds its impact in the Islamic heritage since the dawn of Islam, as there has always been a dispute over two conflicting political models: a model that bases authority and political practice on humanitarian values and principles in order to become an acceptable and legitimate policy. Another model raises the slogan of pragmatism, and makes power and politics a goal, and values and principles a means. Is this difference a difference of diversity or a difference of contrast? And how can it be managed?

This raises many questions, and this book will attempt to provide some elements of answering them: What are the elements of the difference between jurisprudence and modern legislation? Is there a way to resolve this “historical clash” between jurisprudence and positive texts? What is the vision capable of managing the dispute between jurisprudence and contemporary legislation in the constitutional field? How can the difference between the religious state and the civil state be managed? What is the nature of the civil state whose reference is Islam? What about the status of public freedoms and human rights in this country? ..

This book deals with one of the biggest problems facing the Islamic mind in the modern era. It is the harmony between the texts of jurisprudence and the requirements of reality in legal legislation. It does not claim to provide comprehensive answers to these and other questions, but it seeks to provide at least unconventional answers that the author concludes by adopting a synthetic methodological system that takes into account the diversity of the research field and its extension between multiple fields of knowledge.