Atlas Trail
Religious Law as Comparative Machinery
Sharia, Halakha and canon law are three of the world great religious legal families. This atlas holds them strictly as comparative-law machinery: which states actually apply each one, and how differently four real jurisdictions plug the same kind of law into the apparatus of a state, from a full constitution, to reviewed legislation, to a private arbitration panel with no state force at all.
Stop 1 of 8.
Legal Systems
The umbrella: religious law as a legal-system family, and why this atlas holds only its legal-machinery facet.
Stop 2 of 8.
Legal Systems
Sharia: the same body of law, four different legal statuses across Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia and England.
Stop 3 of 8.
Courts
Sharia as full state law: the general courts of Saudi Arabia, applying it alongside the separate Board of Grievances.
Stop 4 of 8.
Courts
Sharia as private arbitration: the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, operating under ordinary English arbitration law with no independent legal force.
Stop 5 of 8.
Legal Systems
Halakha: almost nowhere the whole of a state law, but exclusive and binding within its own narrow domain.
Stop 6 of 8.
Courts
Rabbinical Courts of Israel: the one state-backed exclusive jurisdiction Jewish law holds anywhere today, over marriage and divorce.
Stop 7 of 8.
Legal Systems
Canon law: the one religious legal system that is also, directly, the positive law of a sovereign state.
Stop 8 of 8.
Courts
The Roman Rota: an ordinary appellate court, doing appellate work, for a law whose home state is smaller than most city parks.
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