After 2003 Iraq: A Critical Analysis of the Personal Status Law Amendment and Its Socio-Religious Implications
Dahham Z.W.
2025Electronicpublications.org Ltd
Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law and Practice
2025#21Issue 2441 - 446 pp.
This note offers a critical analysis of the recent amendment to Iraq’s Personal Status Law No. 188 of 1959, situating it within its broader historical and political contexts, particularly the post-2003 transformations that have reoriented the Iraqi legal system along increasingly sectarian lines. The note interrogates the ideological and political forces underpinning this legislative development. It further assesses the legal, social, and religious ramifications of incorporating sect-specific jurisprudence into the domain of family law, examining its impact on the coherence of the legal system, the rights of women and children, and broader societal cohesion. The note concludes that, although the formal recognition of jurisprudential pluralism is framed as a measure to safeguard religious freedom, in practice it risks institutionalising sectarian division within the personal status regime. This development raises fundamental questions regarding constitutional justice and the compatibility of Islamic jurisprudential diversity with the principles of a unified and modern legal order.
Family and Law , Freedom of Belief , Iraqi Personal Status Law , Ja’fari Jurisprudence , Women in Islamic Legislation
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Faculty of International Relations, Law and Business, Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Faculty of International Relations
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