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Abstract
This paper is an attempt to identify the continuities and discontinuities between the religious Islamic notion and practice of kafala (kafāla) and its contemporary application to migrant, or temporary contract labour – with specific reference to the Gulf States where it has been most prominently legislated and practiced. Western (and non-Western) critiques of this form of kafala portray it as a system that is inherently oppressive and exploitative and thus falls considerably short of its traditional representations in Islam. It has been argued that there has been a fundamental rupture between Islamic jurisprudence of kafala and its present practice as a form of labour management. Part of the argument in this paper is that the modern Islamic state, through the right of the leader (waliy al-amr and his siyāsa sharʿiyya), has legitimately modified traditional practices on the basis of the public interest (maṣlaḥa). This political dimension has not been previously addressed. However, despite the veritable criticism of the contemporary practices in the name of kafala, it is argued here that these should be seen as violations of the principles, not because of the principles themselves. We can still identify a traditional normative set of social arrangements, but the exploitative potential of these arrangements motivated by greed and control has overtaken the ethical guidelines of trust, care, responsibility and obligations in relation to the presence of foreign contract labour. From the law and religious dicta through fatwas, we provide evidence of traditional ethical continuity, with some traditional elements in the codified law, but non-compliance in contemporary practice – a perennial problem.
Contributors are: Abbas Barzegar, Abdul Jaleel, Dina Taha, Khalid Abou El Fadl, Mettursun Beydulla, Radhika Kanchana, Ray Jureidini, Rebecca Gould, Said Fares Hassan, Sari Hanafi, Tahir Zaman.
Contributors are: Abbas Barzegar, Abdul Jaleel, Dina Taha, Khalid Abou El Fadl, Mettursun Beydulla, Radhika Kanchana, Ray Jureidini, Rebecca Gould, Said Fares Hassan, Sari Hanafi, Tahir Zaman.