LYNN WELCHMAN, Beyond the Code: Muslim Family Law and the Shari Judiciary in the Palestinian West Bank (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2000). Pp. 444. $160.00 cloth

Extract

Lynn Welchman's Beyond the Code is a very important book and a serious addition to the legal literature on family law in the contemporary Islamic world. Its most immediate task is to introduce to the reader the historical, institutional, and textual elements of the regulation of the family in the West Bank and Gaza of Palestine. It begins by surveying the history of codification of family law in this region, as well as the evolution of sharia courts in conjunction with secular courts, and proceeds to give a detailed account of how the marriage contract, marital life, and divorce are litigated in contemporary Palestine. It ends with a review of the debate on reforming family law in Palestine that was triggered by the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority as an expression, for the first time in history, of a Palestinian (pseudo-) sovereignty. True to its description on the back cover, the book “presents a systematic analysis of the application of Islamic family law [in Palestine] in nearly 10,000 marriage contracts, 1,000 deeds of Talaq or Khul and 2,000 judicial rulings over a time span that includes Jordanian rule and Israeli military occupation, updating this with material from the beginning of the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.”