Reconsidering Islamic Law Through Africa: Perspectives from the Sahara

International audience This special issue seeks to refocus attention away from the application of laws by modern states toward a much longer tradition of Islamic jurisprudence in Africa. Although the treatises and fatwās of legal specialists are a common focus of research on the Arab Islamic world, they rarely appear in the study of Africa. The present volume offers a corrective to discussions of Islamic law on the continent that are often confined to the machinations of contemporary governments alone. It complements recent efforts to challenge the legacies of colonialism that still influence the study of Islam in Africa more broadly arguing that a reexamination of Islamic law in this vein is overdue. The six articles included here represent a modest start to that work