In the mid-16th century, the Ottoman government sought to expand its tax revenue from Egypt through a controversial initiative to levy taxes on endowments (waqf). The controversy produced a diverse range of responses from Ottoman scholar-bureaucrats, such as Ebussuud Efendi, who supported the initiative; Egyptian scholars, including Ibn Nujaym and al-Ghayti, who opposed it; and the Ottoman governor, who worked to resolve it. Despite the opposing positions of the diverse actors, shariʿa served as the common medium for the articulation and negotiation of their opinions and helped produce a compromise that became foundational for the Ottoman tax regime in Egypt. In this episode, shariʿa constituted an instrument of governance. Such a role for shariʿa differs from its conception as an autonomous field of scholarly interpretation, or the understanding of it as an inclusive normative system encompassing rules emerging from both the interpretative activities of scholars and the definitive edicts and orders of rulers. Shariʿa did not constitute the endpoint of rulemaking; rather, it provided the shared language of terms and concepts through which different actors participated in the process of formulating rules.

This article examines the historical roots of juridical moral regulation in modern Egypt, assessing the relationship between modern law and shariʿa through the lens of the influence of the Islamic practice of ḥisba on courts and legislators. The article engages critically with scholarship on Islamic law and postcolonial theory regarding the impact of Western colonialism on law in Muslim societies and problematizes the understanding that shariʿa was secularized in the Egyptian legal culture through the translation of Western legal concepts. Instead, a different narrative is offered, one that recognizes the agency of local actors in the process of secularization and considers the influence of shariʿa in the legal development of contemporary Egypt.

Why is shariʿa the taboo of modern law? This article examines the “spread of halal” controversy in China as a window to assess how nativist public opinion influences state law and policy whereas state law is foreclosed to providing protection to rights provided for in shariʿa. Among Chinese Muslims (Hui), qingzhen (lit. “pure” plus “true”) or “halal” is the kernel of their localized shariʿa, and one that prohibits consuming pork. The symbol qingzhen has proliferated in the course of China's economic modernization such that it pervades the public sphere, creating anxiety among Han Chinese that Chinese society and government is becoming “Islamicized.” Hui fear that the profusion of qingzhen foments food insecurity and endangers truth in labeling. In response, they have sought greater protection for their diluted core symbol in national legislation—attempts which have only exacerbated Hui-Han relations. Based on observations from over seven years of field research and interviews with Hui legal entrepreneurs, and drawing from the anthropology of taboo, I explain the debate in China by taking the Hui idea of shariʿa as a taboo to reflexively think about how secular non-Muslim states regard shariʿa as the taboo of modern law.