MASLAHAH

MASLAHAH. Public interest (al-masalih   almursalah) is regarded in shari `ah (the divine law) as a basis of law. According to necessity and particular circumstances, […]

MASHHAD

MASHHAD. An Arabic word meaning “a place where a martyr died,” mashhad is the gravesite of an imam of Ithna `Ashari Shiism believed to have […]

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. [To articulate religious values and traditions reflected in marriage and divorce in modern Islamic societies, this entry comprises two articles: Legal Foundations […]

MAJLIS

MAJLIS. An Arabic term that seems to have been used in pre-Islamic Arabia to indicate either a tribal council or council of tribes, majlis, after […]

MAHKAMAH

MAHKAMAH. Meaning a “place of judgment,” the term mahkamah has come to refer to all forms of law court in the Arabic-speaking world. In traditional […]

MAHDIYAH

MAHDIYAH. In the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, the northern territories of the presentday Democratic Republic of the Sudan were dominated by a […]

MAHDI

MAHDI. The term mahdi (“divinely guided one”) has come to denote an eschatological figure whose presence will usher in an era of justice and true […]

MADRASAH

MADRASAH. An establishment of learning where the Islamic sciences are taught, the madrasah is a college for higher studies. During the tenth and eleventh centuries, […]

Modern Legal Reform

Modern Legal Reform Reforms affecting Islamic law in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were more far-reaching than any undertaken previously. The impetus for reform came […]