O’Donnell on Shari’ah and Jurisprudence in Islam

Frequent Opinio Juris commentor Patrick O’Donnell has an informative post at Ratio Juris about shari’ah and jurisprudence in Islam. It begins:

Having recently introduced the subjects of constitutionalism and democracy vis-à-vis Islam, I thought it would help to say a few basic things about Sharī‘ah and fiqh, in particular as they have bearing upon our concerns about human rights and democracy, concerns of course common to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The post covers alot of ground, ranging from how the function of Shari’ah may be analogized to natural law as described by the Stoics to the relationship of Shari’ah to democratic theory.  Check it out.