Positive Law and Muslim Societies

Thanks to Althouse, a very interesting comment on laws in Muslim society from a UW Law professor who also happens to be a Muslim:

What I was tackling in my presentation was the roadblock in this issue that I think is presented by the western tendency to think that the sovereign state should be the location of all law for all of society. Once we are able to re-think the location of legal authority in a society, that some can exist as valid and authoritative, yet outside the realm of public lawmaking mechanisms, then I think that we will have gotten much further to coming up with a system of government and lawmaking and adjudication for Muslim societies...

This "roadblock" is usually referred to as "positive law." See "The Amendment" below for another look at this "positive law" problem.