Islamic Jurisprudence and the Regulation of Armed Conflict

Abstract:

The increase in violent attacks against civilians and non-civilians and the claims made by groups waging such attacks that their acts are legitimate under Islamic law generated wide interest in Islamic ‘laws of war’. This paper attempts to challenge the approach focused on comparison between international humanitarian law (IHL) and Islamic law on the basis of the rules adopted in each system and argues that both legal regimes are governed by certain theoretical and ideological paradigms that are distinct from each other. In order to highlight this difference, the paper examines the different juristic approaches to issues of concern to the jurists and shows how these approaches reflected particular agenda and thus can not be simply compared to rules of IHL, because these are equally governed by other agendas and interests.