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Addressing the State: The Syrian ʿUlamaʾ Protest Personal Status Law Reform, 1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2010

Benjamin Thomas White*
Affiliation:
Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.; e-mail: [email protected]

Extract

In February 1939, the Syrian government received two documents from ʿulamaʾ protesting two decrees of the French High Commission that were intended to reform personal status law in Syria: decree 60/L.R. of 13 March 1936 and decree 146/L.R. of 18 November 1938. The first was a petition signed by Muslims from Homs to the Syrian prime minister (pictured); the second was a letter from the Damascus Association of ʿUlamaʾ to the Syrian interior minister.

Type
Quick Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

NOTES

1 Governor of Homs to Syrian Interior Ministry (11 February 1939). Petition enclosed with Wathaʾiq al-Dawla, sijill 2, Wizarat al-Dakhiliyya, 16/5381, Historical Documents Centre, Damascus, Syria.

2 Al-Qassab to Syrian minister of interior (8 February 1939), Wathaʾiq al-Dawla, sijill 2, Wizarat al-Dakhiliyya, 74, Historical Documents Centre, Damascus, Syria. Al-Qassab, a former student of Muhammad ʿAbduh, had been active in Arabist circles for forty years. He had only just been allowed to return to Syria after a decade-long exile following his participation in the 1925–27 revolt against French rule.