Abd El-Razzak El-Sanhuri
‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Sanhūrī | |
---|---|
عبد الرزاق السنهوري | |
Egyptian Council of State | |
In office 3 March 1949 – 29 March 1954 | |
President | Himself |
Preceded by | Kāmil Pasha Mursī |
Succeeded by | ‘Alī al-Sayyid |
Minister of Education | |
In office 24 February 1945 – 15 February 1946 | |
Preceded by | Mohammed Hussein Heikal |
Succeeded by | Muḥammad Ḥasan al-‘Ashmawi |
In office 9 December 1946 – 2 March 1949 | |
Preceded by | Muḥammad Ḥasan al-‘Ashmawi |
Succeeded by | Aḥmad Mursī Badr |
Under-Secretary of Education | |
In office January 1942 – March 1942 | |
Dean of the Law Faculty at the Egyptian National University (Cairo University) | |
In office 8 October 1936 – 15 October 1937 | |
Personal details | |
Born | PhD ) | August 11, 1895
Abd el-Razzak el-Sanhuri or ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Sanhūrī (
He was subsequently appointed as President of the Egyptian Council of State. Al-Sanhūrī's tenure as President of the Council of State lasted until 1954, when he was dismissed by coercion. He has been described as "a personality of unique embroidery, never to reoccur".[1] An avowed advocate of Arab unity, al-Sanhūrī was notably active in the legal and institutional reforms of different Arab countries throughout most of his adult life. He presided over a committee which drafted the Iraqi Civil Code, while at the same time serving as dean of the Baghdad Law School, from 1935 to 1937. He also contributed to a drafting project of a Syrian civil code throughout the early 1940s. Al-Sanhūrī also drafted various public and private laws of Kuwait, Sudan, Libya and Bahrain.
Early life and education
Al-Sanhūrī was born on 11 August 1895 in Alexandria. His father, who, by the time of al-Sanhūrī's birth, had lost his fortune, worked as a 'minor' employee at the Alexandria Municipal Council.
Cairo and Baghdad in the 1930s
After spending eight years as a teacher of civil law at the Faculty of Law in Cairo, al-Sanhūrī moved to Baghdad in 1935, where he became dean of the Baghdad School of Law. In February 1936, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, then the Minister of Interior, put together a committee of jurists for the drafting of an Iraqi Civil Code, which he tasked al-Sanhūrī with presiding over.[4] Interruptions brought about by the 1936 Iraqi coup d'état and strong opposition from Islamists brought the project to a halt. In 1937, al-Sanhūrī returned to Cairo. Around this time, he interacted with secessionists of the Wafd Party and joined the Saadist Institutional Party.
The Egyptian Civil Code
In late 1938, after two drafting committees were abandoned, the Egyptian Minister of Justice Aḥmad al-Khashaba determined that drafting of a civil code would be "best accomplished by two individuals", and proceeded to select al-Sanhūrī and his old mentor, Lambert, for the task. The first draft of the Egyptian Civil Code was completed in 1942. Various administrative hold-ups and legislative procedures resulted in the Code being promulgated on 15 October 1949.
The Iraqi and Syrian civil codes
In 1943, al-Sanhūrī left Egypt to help draft the civil code of Iraq anew. This time, the attempt at drafting a code was more favourable; an Iraqi Civil Code which combined the Majalla and the Egyptian Civil Code as its sources was promulgated in 1951 (but only came into force in 1953). Al-Sanhūrī also visited Syria, at which time he contributed to the drafting of a civil code. His contribution, however, was cut short by his return to Cairo in 1948. Moreover, the articles which he drafted were eventually dropped in favour of the draft which, at the instructions of Husni al-Za'im, more or less mirrored the Egyptian Civil Code.[5]
President of the Council of State
In March 1949, al-Sanhūrī accepted the position of presidency at the Egyptian Council of State. His tenure coincided with the
Later life
Most of al-Sanhūrī's later life was dedicated to the writing and publication of further volumes of Al-Wasīṭ. Nevertheless, in 1959, he was appointed, to Nasser's displeasure,[11] as the director of the legal department at the Arab League's Institute of Arab Research and Studies (IARS) in Cairo, now administered by the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization. Al-Sanhūrī taught a course in comparative Islamic and Western law at the IARS.[12] In 1970, on advice of Cairo University, Alexandria University and Ain Shams University, the Egyptian state awarded al-Sanhūrī its prize for social sciences and culture.[13] Al-Sanhūrī died on 21 July 1971 at his home in Alexandria, and was buried in Heliopolis, Cairo.[14]
Method
Al-Sanhūrī's major contribution to modern Arab legal and intellectual thought is his method of modernizing Islamic
It will be prudent, in reducing modernized Muslim law to legislative expression, to have recourse to formulas flexible enough to allow for the adaptation of the system by the courts to the changing needs of court practice through following the general guidelines set out by doctrine. It will also be desirable that a relative unity of vision guides the legislators of different Muslim countries, which will happen by the very force of the pursuit [of sources], since they will draw all the first inspirations of their legislative work from the same source, Muslim doctrine; but it will of course also be necessary to take into account the particularities of the economic life of each country... The existence of a common ground of ideas between the various [jurisdictional] laws would render conflicts of laws less acute, widen the field of activity of lawyers in Muslim countries, and give more solidity to the creative work of the jurisprudence of the courts, which, in each of the Muslim countries, could benefit from the judicial experiments carried out by the related case law.[16]
Academic commentary
One commentator argued that al-Sanhūrī's codes reflected a "hodgepodge of socialist doctrine and sociological jurisprudence."[17] Other commentators have pointed out that his place in the legal history of the modern Middle East is nevertheless secure; indeed, his Al-Wasīṭ "adorns the bookshelves of many an Arab law firm, even in countries where the Egyptian Civil Code is not law".[citation needed]
Works
- Les restrictions contracluelles a la liberle individuelle de travail dans la jurisprudence anglaise, Paris: Marcel Biard, 1925.
- Le Califat, Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1926.
- Al-'Aqd al-ijar. Cairo, 1930.
- Nazariyyat al-'Aqd. Cairo, 1934
- Al-Mujiz fi al-nazariyya al-'amma lil-iltizamat fi qanun al-madani al-misri. Cairo, 1936.
- Al-Wasīṭ fī sharḥ al-qānūn al-madanī al-jadīd. (10 volumes) Cairo, 1952–1970.
References
- ^ al-Jamī‘ī, ‘Abd al-Bāsit (1971). "'Abd al-Razzāq al-Sanhūrī: al-rajul al-lathī faqadnāh". Al-Fikr alMu'āṣir. 78: 99–104.
- ^ ʿAmāra, Muḥammad (2009). l-Duktūr ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Sanhūrī: Islāmiyyat al-Dawla Wa al-Madīna Wa al-Qānūn. Dār al-Salāma. p. 17.
- ^ Castro, Francesco (1984). Studi in onore di Francesco Gabrielli bel suo ottantesimo compleanno. p. 176.
- ^ Castro, Francesco (1984). Studi in onore di Francesco Gabrielli bel suo ottantesimo compleanno. p. 187.
- JSTOR 3381555.
- ^ Hill, Enid (1988). "Al-Sanhuri and Islamic Law: The Place and Significance of Islamic Law in the Life and Work of 'Abd al-Razzaq Ahmad al-Sanhuri, Egyptian Jurist and Scholar, 1895-1971 [Part II]". Arab Law Quarterly. 3 (2): 9182–218.
- ^ Ziadeh, Farhat (1968). Lawyers, the Rule of Law and Liberalism in Egypt. Hoover Institution on War Revolution and Peace. p. 156.
- ^ Shakra, Gamal (1985). al-Haraka al-siyasiyya fi misr min thawrat yūlyo 1952 ila azmat mars 1954. p. 590.
- ^ Saleh, Nabil. "Civil Codes of Arab Countries: The Sanhuri Codes". Archived from the original on 7 December 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
- ^ Castro, Francesco (1984). Studi in onore di Francesco Gabrielli bel suo ottantesimo compleanno. pp. 203–204.
- ^ Castro, Francesco (1984). Studi in onore di Francesco Gabrielli bel suo ottantesimo compleanno. p. 203.
- ^ Wood, Leonard. “Al-Sanhuri’s Theory of Rights in Islamic Jurisprudence: The Final Act of Franco-Egyptian Comparative Law.” The Maghreb Review, 45, no. 1 (2020), 856-895, 873; 'Imara, Muhammad. (1999). Al-Duktur 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri: islamiyyat al-dawla wa-l-madaniyya wa-l-qanun. Cairo: Dar al-Rashad, 62-65.
- ^ Arthur Goldschmidt, Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt, Lynne Rienner Publishers: 2000, p. 181
- ISBN 9780195382075.
- ^ Abd Al-Razzak Al-Sanhuri, Egyptian Civil Code, Article 1, 1949, «in the absence of any applicable legislation, the judge shall decide according to the custom and failing the custom, according to the principles of Islamic Law. In the absence of these principles, the judge shall have recourse to natural law and the rules of equity.»
- ^ al-Sānhūrī,‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Sanhūrī (1926). Le Califat. pp. 578–584.
- ^ Amr Shalakany, "Between Identity and Redistribution: Sanhuri, Genealogy and the Will to Islamise," Islamic Law and Society (8): 201-244, 2001
Bibliography
- ISBN 977-424-170-3.
- ISSN 1384-1130.
- ISBN 1-84113-289-6.
- ISSN 0928-9380.