The Arab Spring and Islamic Legal Thought

Leonid Sykiainen 

National Research University Higher School of Economics
April 30, 2013

Higher School of Economics Research Paper No. WP BRP 17/LAW/2013 
Abstract:      
At the end of 2010 there was series of political crises in the Arab world and this period came to be known as “the Arab Spring”. Islam has played a significant role in these events. In certain countries overthrowing the existing regimes resulted in Islamic governments coming to power. A number of aspects of the Arab Spring attracted the attention of contemporary Islamic legal thought. Its different schools diverge in the assessment of the mass protests. Islamic jurisprudence explains the “fiqh of revolution” which justifies the demonstrations and protests against the regime from a Sharia-based point of view.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 22

Keywords: the Arab Spring, Islam, political reforms, Sharia, demonstrations, innovation, fiqh of revolution

Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2258422