Contemporary Trends in Sharia: Critical Debates in Historical Contexts, written by Hadi Enayat and Mohamed M. Keshavjee

This review assesses Hadi Enayat and Mohamed M. Keshavjee’s Contemporary Trends in Sharia as a synthetic intervention on contemporary efforts to understand sharia in ways apposite for the 21st century. Situating the book against historical transformations since the nineteenth century—including the movement from jurists’ law to state law, the secularisation of Islamic law through constitutional courts, and the changing authority of the ulama, Muslim religious scholars—the review argues that the book’s chief contribution is methodological. It reframes sharia-related controversies as questions of institutional site, interpretive authority, and enforcement pathways rather than as disputes over a monolithic legal code. The review highlights the book’s relevance for European debates on legal pluralism, gender justice, alternative dispute resolution, and private international law, while arguing that its synthetic strength would be enhanced by fuller doctrinal, empirical, and European case-law engagement.