Morality in Islamic Commercial Law Theory
The Paul-André Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law inaugurates its 2018-2020 Civil Law Workshop series on 'Les influences en droit privé' with a talk by Professor Omar Farahat, Faculty of Law, McGill University.
Abstract
This workshop investigates the place of moral considerations in shaping classical Islamic views on commerce and commercial law. The relation between morality and law is a question that received much attention in modern jurisprudence, and is often used as a framework for analyzing the Islamic legal tradition. Nonetheless, not much has been said on the place of moral ideas in shaping laws governing commercial exchanges in either tradition. While, in modern law, it is sometimes claimed that positive morality is squarely opposed to capitalist-driven commercial laws, studies on Islamic commerce tend to either offer descriptive accounts of the law, or a historical narrative of economic stagnation.
By contrast, this workshop will discuss the moral frameworks constructed by a number of classical Muslim thinkers to allow a conceptualization of commercial activity and a formulation of broad principles that make sense of Islamic legal regulation of commerce. The talk will make two central claims. Internally, Islamic commercial law theory viewed morality as an effective yardstick against which the validity of transactions could be measured. Externally, the anchoring of law in a metaphysical view of morality allowed for a more pervasive and multi-layered intervention of moral ideas in commercial regulation than generally assumed in modern works on commercial law theory.
About the Civil Law Workshops
In order to promote fundamental research in private law, the Paul-André Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law initiated the “Civil Law Workshops” series, bringing together jurists from Québec and beyond to work on related research topics. With their cross-disciplinary focus, the “Civil Law Workshops” contribute to enriching and stimulating fundamental research in private law.
The 2018-2020 series of Civil law workshops presented by the Paul-André Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law explore "Les influences en droit privé".
The workshops are presented with financial assistance from Justice Canada’s Access to Justice in Both Official Languages Support Fund.
Registration is not required.
Each workshop has been accredited for 1.5 hour of continuing legal education by the Barreau du Québec and the Chambre des notaires du Québec.
