Copyright in Islamic Law

Copyright in Islamic Law is the first work in English to systematically discuss the ideas of intellectual property and copyright from an Islamic perspective. The author, Dr Mohamed Ali Ahdash, builds a framework from within Shari'a law to address the concepts of intellectual property and copyright. In so doing, he adopts the classical usul al-fiqh approach by firstly defining the key terms associated with the field, namely: right (haqq), ownership (milkiyya), wealth (mal) and utility (manfa'a). Dr Ahdash then analyses how these terms are used in the Qur'an and in the Hadith, before looking at how the secondary sources of analogy (qiyas), public interest (maslaha), custom ('urf) and legal maxims (qawa'id fiqhiyya) can be applied to copyright. The result of this study is a framework wherein the concept of copyright is defined and understood in an Islamic manner. This gives a consistent approach from which specific rulings can be derived. Copyright in Islamic Law is both a ground-breaking study in Shari'a law and a valuable contribution to the ongoing debates on copyright in general.