Islamic Constitutionalism and Rule of Law : A Constitutional Economics Perspective

This study investigates the relationship between constitutionalism from an Islamic perspective and rule of law. Al Azhar, one of the most respected Sunni religious institutions in the world, developed a model of an Islamic constitution. This study uses Al-Azhar's constitution as a model of Islamic constitutionalism, whereby its stance regarding rule of law is examined. We find that Al-Azhar's constitution does not correspond with essential concepts of rule of law. For example, the powers vested in the head of the Islamic state are enormous, making the executive branch of government by far superior to the legislative and judicial branches. Women and non-Muslims are explicitly discriminated throughout the constitution. Moreover, laws stemming from this constitution are not stable since many differences exist among schools of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). Consequently, we show that state-of-the-art Islamic constitutionalism lacks essential components needed in any constitution based on rule of law