Mathias Rohe holds the Chair for Civil Law, Private International Law and Comparative Law at the Faculty of Law/University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany. Additionally, he has a secondary office as judge at the Court of Appeal of Nürnberg. His research focuses on the fields of modern Islamic law (including economic law), the legal status of Islam in Germany and Europe and German and international banking, credit and securities law.

Respondent: Baber Johansen, Professor of Islamic Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School

Lecture Abstract: When the archbishop of Canterbury recently declared the introduction of some Shari'a norms in Britain to be inevitable he triggered an outcry in European media and public. Would thieves' hands be cut off in the future? Would polygamy be introduced in European family laws, and would the secular order of the state be replaced by an Islamic theocracy? The paper to be presented will focus on two main subjects: Firstly, the scope and the limits for the application of Islamic norms in a European legal context shall be highlighted. Secondly, what are the attitudes of Muslims living in Europe towards the given legal order?

Read Professor Rohe's Lecture: here