Teaching Islamic Law at Public Universities in the Countries of the Former Yugoslavia
Teaching Islamic Law at Public Universities in the Countries of the Former Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: As one of the world’s great legal systems, Islamic law is taught at many academic institutions, using different methodological approaches and within different institutional frameworks. The subject of this study is the teaching of Islamic law at public universities in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. It is based on the analysis of teaching curricula, textbooks, and additional literature used for courses at graduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels. At almost all law schools in the former Yugoslav member states that were the subject of this study, Islamic law is taught within the framework of General Political and Legal History or Comparative Legal History/Traditions and Political and Legal History or National Legal History. Within these subjects, Islamic law is taught within a comparative historical and legal perspective and as part of previous positive law under the Ottoman state. The scope of Islamic legal studies varies by state, however. For example, at the law faculties of the universities of Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Skopje, it is broadly taught at all three levels, while at the universities of Ljubljana and Podgorica it is not taught at all. In Sarajevo, Belgrade and Skopje, Islamic law is taught together with other great legal systems in historical and contemporary context, modelled on contemporary approaches to the study of Islamic law and legal cultures in general at academic institutions around the world. Bearing in mind the turbulent history of these states, the marginalisation of religion (and so of religious law) during the socialist period, and the fact that these faculties educate secular legal experts, the extent to which Islamic law is taught at public universities is satisfactory for the profile of experts being educated by them.

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