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35 Arab L.Q. 74 (2020-2021)
The Typewritten Market: Shari'ah-Compliance and Securitisation in the Law of Islamic Finance

handle is hein.journals/arablq35 and id is 74 raw text is: ARAB LAW QUARTERLY 35 (2021) 74-91             Arab Law
BRILL                                                             Quarterly
N IJ H O F F                                                      brill.com/alq
The Typewritten Market: Shari'ah-Compliance and
Securitisation in the Law of Islamic Finance
Valentino Cattelan
Saudi-Spanish Center for Islamic Economics and Finance, Madrid, Spain
cattelanvalentino@libero.it
Abstract
By taking inspiration from Wislawa Szymborska's poetry and Brinkley Messick's schol-
arship, this article interprets the law of Islamic finance as evidence of a radical shift
in the social anthropology of Islamic law from classical to contemporary times. To this
aim it highlights the changes from figh in medieval trade (where individual actions
were judged according to rules legitimised by their own local context) to the current
process of Shari'ah-compliance, arguing that this process belongs to a textual polity
where standardised certificates, contracts and securities have replaced actual social
relations in the global financial market. In the light of this, the article advances the no-
tion of Typewritten Market to depict the nature of Islamic finance as a socio-economic
space embodying a 'de-materialised Sariah': that is to say, a meaning of Islamic law
whose contemporary time belongs more to legal/financial technology rather than to
Muslim human action.
Keywords
Islamic finance - Shari'ah-compliance - Islamic law - anthropology -  ariah -figh

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020  DOI:10.1163/15730255-BJA10051

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