REVISITING THE COMMONALITY OF RULES OF LAW OF SEA IN THE ISLAMIC TRADITION: CONTESTING WESTERN IDEAS THROUGH ALTERNATE CONCEPTIONS ON THE HISTORICITY OF LAW OF SEA

Abstract

The European Legal philosophers hold the view that the foundation of the modern Law of seas was laid by the Western/European philosophers like Hugo Grotius and John Seldon. This whole perspective has sparked a debate among legal philosophers as to origin of the law of seas. The problem with this perspective is that they are trying to establish Law of seas as a European contribution to the international law. Stupendously, whether deliberately or negligently, they have tried to discard the contributions of the non-Europeans to the development of customary law of seas. Among the non-European scholarship, the Islam has greatly contributed to the development of rules of Law of seas. With the advent of Islam in Mediterranean world, Muslims continued to control the Mediterranean Sea for several centuries and Muslims continued to control half of world’s maritime possessions. Despite the fact that Holy Qur’ān, hadith and other Islamic literature gives a lot of importance to the law of seas, this aspect failed to attract the attention of modern and western legal scholarship. This chapter will analyze the whole concourse of the concept of territorial sea and right of innocent passage from Islamic perspective. This chapter will further examine the commonality of rules regulating freedom of navigation in Holy Quran and other Islamic traditions.