Afghanistan Rising: Islamic Law and Statecraft between the Ottoman and British Empires

CSSAAME Vol. 41.2 Open-Access Kitabkhana

Out now and open-access: Comparative Studies of South Asian, African and Middle East Studies is pleased to publish its kitabkhana from Vol. 41.2 on Faiz Ahmed’s award winning monograph Afghanistan Rising with essays by Neilesh Bose, Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, Leyla Amzi-Erdoǧdular, Leyla Amzi-Erdoǧdular, Nurfadzilah Yahaya, Elizabeth Lhost, Michael O'Sullivan and a response by Faiz Ahmed.

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“Challenging conventional narratives of Afghanistan as a perennial war zone, and the rule of law as a secular-liberal monopoly,this book presents an account of the first Muslim-majority country to gain independence, codify its own laws, and ratify a constitution after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. If Afghanistan seems an unexpected candidate for this distinction, it is because historical approaches to Afghan law and governance before the Soviet invasion of 1979 remain few and far between. Based on archival research in six countries, the book uncovers the lost history behind the rise of Afghanistan as a sovereign nation amid empires, the makers of its first constitution from Constantinople to Kandahar, and the hurdles they overcame in crafting a modern state within the interpretive traditions of Islamic law and ethics, or shariʿa, and international norms of legality.”