Maldives commercial laws reform: Accommodating the tenets of Islam / Mohamed Ibrahim

• Main Author: Mohamed, Ibrahim
• Format: Thesis
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: BP Islam. Bahaism. Theosophy, etc
• Online Access: http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/7436/1/All.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/7436/6/ibrahim.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/7436/

This thesis examines the existing 38 commercial laws of the Maldives based on the benchmark set out in Article 10 of the Maldives‟ Constitution 2008: the confirmation of the tenets of Islam. This benchmark represents a constitutional standard that all laws in the Maldives are required to meet. Thus, this thesis aims to identify those laws, and/or provisions, within the Maldives‟ commercial legislations that remain contrary to the benchmark with the objective of seeking out, and ultimately suggesting, law reforms in order to fully accommodate the tenets of Islam. The study adopts a qualitative method along with content analysis and various informal interviews with Maldivian Islamic scholars, lawmakers and lawyers etc.The key elements of Islamic commercial law contain the prohibition of riba(usury), gharar (uncertainty) and mysir (gambling), all of which stand as the basic tenets of Islam in relation to commerce. Additionally, these laws must comply with the general tenets of Islam such as the prohibition of any form of business and trade in liquor, pork and pornography etc. To accommodate these tenets, this thesis tested various Islamic commercial reform models, i.e Islamisation and harmonisation of laws with reference to Shari‘ah. After analyzing the content of these commercial laws, it was revealed that 99.56% of these legal provisions complied with the tenets of Islam, while a very scant 0.44% were found contrary to the tenets of Islam. While regulators of the country can feel comforted with these findings, strict constitutional obligations mandate that reforms be undertaken to resolve the remaining provisions that are not. It should be noted that the existing conventional un-Islamic commercial practices in the Maldives do not result solely from enacted legislation, but also from long-established commercial practices, which could be reformed gradually by adopting comprehensive policies for the Islamisation of commerce and law, as concluded in this study.