New University of Toronto Islamic law professor Anver Emon. Photo courtesy of the University of Toronto Click here to see full sized version.

Interest in Islamic law is growing within Canada’s legal community. The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law recently appointed two full-time professors specializing in Islamic law for the first time and other universities are interested in expanding their expertise in the area.

Several factors are contributing to increased interest: the growing number of Muslims in Canada; the ongoing debate about Sharia-based family arbitration in Ontario; and, of course, the terrorist attacks in London, Madrid and New York City.

Muslim law, also called Sharia, is a broad ethical code covering religious rituals, financial transactions and activities of daily life. It differs from country to country and it is based on the holy books the Koran and the Sunna, but it also incorporates local traditions.

Canada has a growing number of Muslims: According to the 2001 census, there are around 580,000 in Canada, more than double the number living here in 1991.

Statistics Canada says Islam will continue to be one of Canada’s fastest-growing religions, and predicts the Muslim population will reach 1.4 million by 2017.

The University of Toronto’s first professor in this area, Anver Emon, was born in Los Angeles to Muslim parents originally from India. Emon has a Master of Laws from Yale Law School and he’s currently completing two doctoral programs in Islamic law from Yale and UCLA.

At the University of Toronto, Emon will teach courses on introductory Islamic law and Islamic gender relations. Early next year, the university will see the arrival of its second Islamic law professor, Mohammad Fadel, who will teach business organizations.

Emon said Islamic law is still a young field in North America, but a growing number of people are choosing to study it.

“The challenge for a law school is to find someone who is conversant in Islamic law as well as local law,” he said. “That’s why I chose to get two doctorates — I wanted to be conversant in both traditions, Anglo-American-Canadian as well as Islamic. It allows for greater cross-comparison.”

Emon said that after the September 11 attacks in New York, many people wanted to know more about Islamic culture.

“There is certainly considerable interest in how Muslims make sense of the world around them,” said Emon. “If you watch the Bin Laden videotapes, he has a row of books behind him. They’re medieval legal books. This tradition still resonates for a lot of people. Through scholarship in Islamic law, we can understand the arguments of people like Bin Laden and learn what motivates them. We can also see if they’re quoting the scripture completely or if they’re doing so in a piecemeal fashion.”

Associate Dean Lorne Sossin said the Faculty of Law is interested in further expanding its expertise in Islamic law.

“There is a growing recognition in our post-September 11 world that the Western academy has failed to fully understand the currents and influences of Islamic society,” he said. “Islamic Law is one of the world’s major legal systems. Because the stability of the world order depends, in part, upon our ability to bridge the intellectual and cultural divide between the Western and Islamic worlds, legal scholars can no longer ignore the importance of Islamic thought in the world order.
Modern legal education demands that students are exposed to Islamic legal systems in order to prepare them for the challenges of leadership and citizenship in today’s global society.”

The McGill Faculty of Law is also interested in expanding its expertise in the area. The faculty doesn’t currently have any full-time professors who teach on the subject, but over the past few years, they have invited visiting scholars and sessional lecturers to teach Islamic law.

McGill’s Institute of Islamic Studies is the home of Wael Hallaq, one of Canada’s foremost experts in Islamic law, who recently received the James McGill Chair, the highest academic honour McGill awards its faculty.

“As legal studies take on an increasingly international character, we’re seeing a heightened curiosity about different sources of law, including religious ones,” said Catherine Walsh, associate dean of the Faculty of Law. “Our program places a strong emphasis on examining the law from a trans-systemic perspective, so we are naturally interested in opportunities that allow us to encourage scholarship that touches on legal pluralism.”

Naseer Syed, chair of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association and lawyer with the Scarborough law firm Baksh & Kutty, said there are growing opportunities for lawyers to advise Islamic businesses in Canada.

“In the commercial banking market and the consumer housing market, there is a certainly a huge demand for products that are compliant with Muslim beliefs and practices,” Syed said. “The market isn’t necessarily restricted to local consumers, because Muslims living abroad are also looking for investment opportunities in Canada.”

Faisal Bhabha of the newly formed Arab Canadian Lawyers Association says that if Sharia-based family arbitration gets the green light in Ontario, it could stimulate more interest in Islamic law. The Ontario government recently postponed the decision to change the province’s laws to allow voluntary faith-based arbitration for Muslims.

“If there are lawyers who have some familiarity with Ontario and Canadian laws, as well as Islamic law, there could be opportunities for them,” said Bhabha. “It depends on the extent that members of the community use this system of arbitration. We have no sense yet of how much this would actually be used.”

Bhabha said Muslims lawyers don’t necessarily have in-depth knowledge of the Sharia — and many aren’t keen to go through the gruelling process of getting an Islamic legal education as well as a law degree. He said the study of Muslim law requires fluency in Arabic, a language that many Canadian Muslims don’t speak.
However, Bhabha said even if lawyers don’t become experts on the Sharia, having some knowledge of it can be useful.

“On an informal level, Islamic law is used already in Canada,” he said. “Islamic legal principles are used to devise marital agreements, prenuptial agreements and separation agreements. Those terms can be incorporated as long as both parties agree.”