BASIC FREEDOMS IN A FRACTURED LEGAL CULTURE - EGYPT AND THE CASE OF ABUZAYD,NASR,HAMID

The modernization of law in the Arab world, which began in the ninetee nth century, has created a dichotomy between the European-based laws i n the constitutional, commercial and criminal law fields and the Islam ic and other religious laws which continue to apply to matters of pers onal status and domestic relations. Certain individual rights and free doms guaranteed by constitutions have been subverted by limitations on the freedom of belief impediments to marriage, and lack of gender equ ality, in the religious laws. The detrimental impact of these fundamen tal contradictions in the same legal system are illustrated by the cas e in Egypt of Professor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, who was accused of heresy and ordered to separate from his wife on the grounds that islamic rul es of domestic relations do not permit a Muslim woman to be married to an apostate from Islam.