Islamic Law in Saudi Arabia
In his doctoral dissertation, former Institute research fellow Dominik Krell examines the workings of the Saudi judiciary. Against the background of recent reforms, he offers new insights on the legal reasoning of Saudi judges and considers how their approach is reflected in Saudi Arabia’s laws, legal institutions, and court practice. A supplemented version of the work has now been published in open access in the Brill series “Studies in Islamic Law and Society”.
Whereas in most Islamic countries rulings are based on statutory codes, courts in Saudi Arabia have until recently applied uncodified Islamic law. The Saudi judicial system is one of the last major legal systems to be dominated by legal scholars. What is their understanding of the law? How are their views and values reflected in the Saudi legal reality?
Based on an extensive review of court decisions (which have only recently become generally available), legal literature, and interviews completed with leading Saudi judges and legal scholars, Krell investigates how the tradition of Islamic jurisprudence is interpreted and applied in contemporary Saudi Arabia.
The legal understanding of Saudi scholars is increasingly of international importance. Through their strong media presence, Saudi scholars have established themselves as leading representatives of Islamic orthodoxy. Their thinking now dominates discourse both inside and outside the Arab world. Krell's work thus not only closes a research gap on Saudi Arabia but also contributes to a better understanding of Islamic law in the 21st century.
Dr. Dominik Krell studied law at the Freie Universität Berlin and at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Additionally, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in the history and culture of the Middle East at the Freie Universität Berlin and a Master of Science in social anthropology at the University of Oxford. He was a visiting fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riad and a guest researcher at the University of Bergen. From 2016 to 2023 he was an academic staff member at the Institute. He was awarded his doctoral degree, summa cum laude, by the University of Hamburg in 2021. His doctoral dissertation received numerous honours, including the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society and awards bestowed by the German Middle East Studies Association for Contemporary Research and Documentation (DAVO) and the Association for Arabic and Islamic Law (GAIR). Furthermore, his dissertation earned honorable mention for the 2024 BRAIS Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World. Since May 2023 he has been a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.
Image: © Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
