Islamic Law

FIRST STEPS ARTICLES BOOKS

First steps for identifying Islamic Law issues:
 

  • First, an excellent place to search original Islamic law source material, and specifically the Qur'an and the Sunna, all in English translation, is here.
  • Look for regions, countries, or issues in articles and reports by the Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.cfr.org/
  • Choose “OIC Institutions” in the Statistical, Economic, & Social Research Training Center for Islamic Countries’ “links” list.
    http://www.sesrtcic.org/index.php

 
If any of these electronic resources ask you for a user name and password, log-in to https://sremote.pitt.edu with your Pitt user name and password and look for the source in the University's database list.  If you still can't get in, you will have to access it from the law school’s computer lab.

 

How to find journal articles about law and policy in Islamic countries:

The University Library System databases include titles such as Arab Law Quarterly, Islamic Law and Society, and Muslim World Journal of Human Rights.

You can find articles in these kinds of privately published journals by:

JSTOR - http://www.jstor.org/

Scholarly journals including many social sciences and international affairs sources.

PAIS – Public Affairs Information Service

Articles, conference reports, white papers,    etc… about domestic, foreign, & international policy issues.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts Database
http://www.proquest.com/libraries/academic/databases/polsci-set-c.html

Remember, when using non-law databases, to include “law” or “court” or other search terms conveying that you seek legal information.  To reach the narrowest results in Lexis, Westlaw, and other journal databases, remember to use searches like these:

Islam! OR Muslim w/10 ___(search term)___

 or

 TITLE (islamic law) and TITLE (financ!)

or

 Egypt w/seg  islam! OR muslim w/2 law

 

Books about Islamic law are within multiple call number ranges on the third floor of the law library and at the GSPIA & Hillman Libraries: 

  • The KBP call number range is for books about analysis and practical application of Islamic law.
  • The BP call number range is for books about Islamic religious law.
  • The regional call number ranges for countries that officially follow Islamic law:
    Middle East—KM

Africa—KQ - KT
Asia—KN - KP

--Also consult the library catalog at http://pittcat.pitt.edu where you can search by author, title, keyword, call number or subject.

Interesting Islamic Law Web Sites:

Organization of the Islamic Conference
Search for information from this IGO’s their newsletter and other documents with the following Google site search: site:www.oic-oci.org(space)xxx.   (The xxx is where you put your search terms.)

http://www.oic-oci.org/

Islamic Law Infobase
Browse by country or “special topics.”

http://www.nyazee.org/islaw/Islamic%20Law%20Infobase.html

Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights

Peruse articles, cases, and other resources.

http://www.karamah.org
law articles http://karamah.org/resources/articles/research

Contemporary Thought
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/islamic/resources.html

Encyclopedia

http://www.al-islam.org/encyclopedia/

Dictionary & language lessons
http://i-cias.com/babel/arabic/index.htm