Submitting Faith to Judicial Scrutiny Through the Family Trial: The “Abû Zayd Case”

Abstract

In 1993, a Cairo-based group of lawyers brought an action in the Giza Court of First Instance [Mahkamat al-Jiza al-Ibtida'iyya] demanding the dissolution of the marriage of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and Ibtihal Yfnis. AbCu Zayd, at the time assistant professor of Islamic studies and literature at Cairo University, has authored several books and numerous articles on Qur'anic interpretation and other religious issues. His modernist ideas, in particular his application of the methods of textual analysis to religious texts, have prompted the fierce criticism of both the religious establishment and Islamists. The plaintiffs argued that the writings of Abfu Zayd, who considers himself a faithful Muslim, were heretical and that he, therefore, was an apostate. Under Islamic law the marriage of an apostate to a Muslim woman is void. The plaintiffs claimed that it was the duty of every Muslim to enforce the dissolution of a marital union of that kind. In a ruling dated 27 January 1994, the Court of First Instance dismissed the action on the grounds that the plaintiffs-being a third party-were not entitled to the action. The plaintiffs appealed, and in a ruling dated 14 June 1995 the Cairo Court of Appeals [Mahkamat Isti'naf al-Qahira] reversed the ruling of the Court of First Instance. The Court of Appeals held that Abu Zayd was an apostate and that his marriage must therefore be dissolved. This time the defendants and the public prosecutor [al-Niyaba al'Amma] appealed. However, in a ruling dated 5 August 1996 the Egyptian Court of Cassation [Mahkamat al-Naqd al-Misriyya], the