Women in Shari`a Courts: A Historical and Methodological Discussion

In his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber divided law into tribal law, bureaucratic law, and what he termed ?the legal order.? According to Weber, only Western society, due to its historical evolution, has ever really experienced the legal order built on a rational approach to law, a legal system which is remote from personal interest and which is applied equally to all classes and sectors of society. In this scheme, Islamic law fell historically first under ?tribal system" and later during the Ottoman period, the legal system was promoted to the "bureaucratic order."