Towards a unified Arab and Islamic Civil Law: Past Experiences, Present Challenges, and Future Prospects

Abstract

The dream of Arab and Islamic unity is still far-fetched in light of the current realities.  Legislative unity is considered a manifestation of the unity of the nation, and it has approaches and forms that benefit from past and present experiences at the Arab, Islamic, European and even international levels. This paper comes within the framework of supporting the idea of achieving legal unity at the Arab and Islamic level based on the authority of Islamic Sharia, which is the strongest reference that unites the nation, in addition to many other factors, by shedding light on past experiences, present’s time realities, and future prospects. The paper concludes that the best way to achieve legal unity in light of today’s realities is model laws as a first stage that gradually leads to legal convergence, with the hope of reaching other, clearer levels of unity, as is the case within the framework of the European Union.