- Date
March 6, 2018 - Category
Andy's Blog, Industry Insights
Sharia’a and Dispute Boards
One of the objections to the use of dispute boards in the Middle East and North Africa that I have heard goes something along the lines of:
“they may work in the West, but we have different laws here and our culture is different”.
Most of the MENA Region law is based upon the Civil Code and also respects the laws of Sharia’a. Whilst I am not a lawyer and certainly not an expert on Sharia’a, I have discussed this at length with people who are experts on both subjects and here is a summary of my findings.
Sharia’a believes in the binding character of any agreements and the Holy Qur’an says:
Oh, you who believe abide by your contractual commitments’ and ‘Oh, you who believe fulfill your contracts’ (al-Ma’ida 5:1).
Dispute boards assist the parties in determining the correct interpretation of contracts and consequently, help the parties to fulfil their obligations as required by Sharia’a.
The principles of Islamic contract law are: (more…)