Mohammedan Legislation

The Ohio Bangladesh telephonic marriage ceremony case I blogged about beneath talked about “Mohammedan legislation,” which struck me as uncommon and archaic; and certainly a Google Ngrams search helps this. You possibly can right-click on the picture beneath and choose “Open Picture in New Tab” (or no matter your browser calls that) to enlarge, however mainly the purple line is for “Islamic legislation,” the darkish blue is for “Sharia legislation,” and the sunshine blue is for “Mohammedan legislation,” which began within the lead round 1920 however is now very unusual. (“Mahometan legislation” and “Mahomedan legislation,” as you would possibly collect, are much more uncommon; “Muhammadan legislation” is about as uncommon as “Mohammedan legislation.”)

There’s nothing, after all, inherently derogatory about naming spiritual legislation after a prophet reasonably than after the formal identify of the faith or of the spiritual legislation throughout the faith—parts of Jewish legislation, as an illustration, have traditionally been known as “Mosaic legislation.” But it surely’s now not customary, a lot because it’s now not customary to make use of “Hebrew” to discuss with Jews as an ethnic group or a faith, although it was as soon as fairly regular, and remains to be mirrored within the names of some synagogues and organizations, comparable to HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Help Society). And when such phrases grow to be archaic sufficient, individuals who hear them would possibly marvel, “What does he imply by that?,” even within the absence of particular motive to assume they’re pejorative.

However whereas it is now not customary in America or in American legislation, as finest I can inform, the time period seems to be fairly frequent (spelled “Mohammedan legislation,” “Muhammadan legislation,” or “Mahomedan legislation”) within the authorized programs of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This may occasionally in flip stem from historical past, since many treatises have been so named; and since this has been such an necessary topic in these international locations, the time period appears to have caught. And I take it that the Ohio courtroom borrowed Bangladesh authorized utilization as a result of that is what the Bangladesh legislation sources (which it considered as related to figuring out the authorized guidelines relevant to a wedding between Bangladesh residents, performed by phone when the spouse was in Bangladesh) used.