Decolonising Islamic Studies

A secular translation converts the Islamic tradition into "religion" (the non-secular) and Islamic law into "sharia"--a term intended to represent the English mispronunciation of the Arabic word (sharīʿah) شريعة. I explore the differences between historical Islamic terms and secular terms in order to demonstrate that coloniality generates religion and religious law; in turn, these two notions convert شريعة (sharīʿah) into "sharia" in both Arabic and non-Arabic languages. Consequently, the notion of "sharia" is part of a colonial system of meaning.

Related article:

https://www.academia.edu/45466459/_Decolonial_translation_destabilizing_coloniality_in_secular_translations_of_Islamic_law_Journal_of_Islamic_Ethics_5_2021_250_77

Professor Lena SALAYMEH is British Academy Global Professor in the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (University of Oxford) and Professor in the Section des Sciences Religieuses of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris Sciences et Lettres). She is also Co-Organizer of the Decolonial Comparative Law Project at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Private International Law (Hamburg). She is a scholar of law and history, with specializations in Islamic jurisprudence, Jewish jurisprudence, and critical theory. She received a Guggenheim fellowship and her first book, The Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions, received the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of Textual Studies.