Islamic Law and Civil Code: The Law of Property in Egypt

Richard A. Debs analyzes the classical Islamic law of property based on the Shari'ah, traces its historic development in Egypt, and describes its integration as a source of law within the modern format of a civil code. He focuses specifically on Egypt, a country in the Islamic world that drew upon its society's own vigorous legal system as it formed its modern laws. He also touches on issues that are common to all such societies that have adopted, either by choice or by necessity, Western legal systems.

Egypt's unique synthesis of Western and traditional elements is the outcome of an effort to respond to national goals and requirements. Its traditional law, the Shari'ah, is the fundamental law of all Islamic societies, and Debs's analysis of Egypt's experience demonstrates how Islamic jurisprudence can be sophisticated, coherent, rational, and effective, developed over centuries to serve the needs of societies that flourished under the rule of law.

Richard A. Debs is an advisory director of Morgan Stanley, having been president of Morgan Stanley International and previously a Federal Reserve official. He is chairman emeritus of the American University of Beirut and a trustee of the Institute of International Education, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, the Barenboim-Said Foundation, and Carnegie Hall. He is also cochair of the Advisory Board of Columbia University's Middle East Institute and has been decorated by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

Frank E. Vogel is is the founding director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program at the Harvard Law School where he taught for twenty years. He is the author of Islamic Law and Legal System: Studies of Saudi Arabia and Islamic Law and Finance: Religion, Risk, and Return.

Ridwan Al-Sayyid has been a visiting professor at Harvard University and the University of Chicago and was the director of the Higher Institute for Islamic Studies in Beirut, as well as the director of the Arab Development Institute.