The dangers of kryptonite: Living with imperfection in the teaching of Islamic law

Nicholas Foster, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, School of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

This presentation was given at the inaugural meeting of the UKCLE Islamic Law Special Interest Group.

abstract | biography | presentation

Abstract

Law is difficult to teach well. Like life, the problems of which it attempts to solve, law is complex and vast and, like life, to be reasonably well understood needs experience of the world. At the same time, it has its own specific reasoning processes. But at least when one is teaching the law of one’s own value-system and culture, there are links between that law and the experience of both teachers and taught, a clear structure, reasonably well defined aims and a well-established resource infrastructure.

Teaching the law of another value-system/culture, such as ‘Islamic Law’ poses additional challenges, including: lack of familiarity with underlying values and culture; boundaries and structure; variety of aims; variety of teachers; variety of audiences and diversity within audiences; language; similarities and differences (comparative law); and resources.

It is easy to fall into the trap of aiming for perfection when dealing with these issues, to try to be a Kryptonian. That path, though, is strewn with blocks of Kryptonite, green (usually) and deadly. On the other hand, living with imperfection should make it possible to achieve realistic, satisfactory objectives.

The purpose of this presentation is to set out some of these issues and provide a starting point for discussion.

Biography

Nicholas Foster is Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, School of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Comparative Law and has been Co-Director of the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law at SOAS. He is a member of the Higher Education Academy’s Islamic Studies Project Advisory Board and the Advisory Group of the Islamic Law Curriculum Development Project.

Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (Law and Arabic) and the University of Aix-Marseille III (French Law), he worked for some years as a solicitor in the City of London and elsewhere. Now a full-time academic, his research interests include comparative commercial and corporate law with special reference to Islamic law and the modern law of the Arab Middle East, Islamic finance and corporate law theory. He has written detailed comparative accounts of rahn, kafala and hawala and has just completed studies on Islamic perspectives on the law of business associations. He is working at present on Islamic finance and the role of commerce in the westernisation of law in the Middle East. He has extensive teaching experience and in 2005-6 was awarded the SOAS Director’s Teaching Prize.

Profile and publication list.

Presentation

Last Modified: 24 February 2011