| Introduction | 1 | |
| Pt. I | Muslim personal status law in Egypt : the current situation and possibilities of reform through internal initiatives | 15 |
| 1 | Social context | 22 |
| 2 | Personal status law in Egypt : an historical overview | 30 |
| 3 | Understanding the law : Egyptian family and social attitudes (results of the field study) | 45 |
| 4 | Law no. 1 of 2000 : a new personal status law and a limited step on the path to reform | 58 |
| 5 | General conclusions | 87 |
| Pt. II | Islamic law and the transition to Palestinian statehood : constraints and opportunities for legal reform | 95 |
| 6 | Legal context : shari'a courts and Muslim family law in the transitional period | 99 |
| 7 | Palestinian interim governance : state legitimation, legal reform and the shari'a | 112 |
| 8 | Attitudes towards legal reform of personal status law in Palestine | 125 |
| 9 | Agents for reform : the woman's movement, social politics and family law reform | 144 |
| Pt. III | No altars : a survey of Islamic family law in the United States | 177 |
| 10 | Islamic family law in American Muslim hands | 181 |
| 11 | The Muslim family in the USA : law in practice | 188 |
| 12 | Islamic family law in US courts | 199 |
| 13 | Future trends and predictions | 213 |
| 14 | Conclusion | 218 |
| Pt. IV | Domestic violence and shari'a : a comparative study of Muslim societies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia | 231 |
| 15 | Domestic violence and shari'a | 235 |
Overview
This volume explores the present-day realities of Islamic family law, with particular emphasis on the rights of women. Three contrasting country cases have been selected: Egypt, the most populous Arab state with a constitutional clause on the place of "principles of the sharìa" as the principal source of legislation; the West Bank and Gaza, family law here being a contested site between different visions of national identity in the process of trying to build a Palestinian state; and the United States, where some...