Copyright in Islamic Law

Copyright in Islamic Law is the first work in English to systematically address the ideas of intellectual property and copyright from an Islamic perspective. The author 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 (haq), 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 qiyas (analogy), maslaha (public interest), 'urf (custom) and al-qawa'id al-fiqhiyya (legal maxims) 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 then gives a consistent approach from which specific rulings can be derived. Copyright in Islamic Law is a ground-breaking study not only within Shari'a law, but also by making a contribution to the on-going debates on copyright in general.