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Zakat and the financing of public health in Kenya: An interdisciplinary analysis of human rights law, Islamic law and constitutional law

Latif, Laila ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1081-0763 2022. Zakat and the financing of public health in Kenya: An interdisciplinary analysis of human rights law, Islamic law and constitutional law. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.
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Abstract

This thesis presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the legal relationship between zakat, commonly described as obligatory almsgiving, and financing public health in Kenya. It offers significant contributions to the fields of human rights law, Islamic law, and constitutional law. These three fields representing distinct legal frameworks with different conceptual foundations converge in the debate surrounding zakat's potential contribution to financing public health. Through the doctrinal and theoretical examination of this convergence, the thesis offers important insights into socio-legal scholarship. It highlights three theoretical takeaways concerning the legal permissibility of recognising and including zakat as part of the maximum available resources’ obligation under human rights law which requires states to use all available resources to provide essential health services, the Islamic doctrinal perspectives around the use of zakat for financing health, and the constitutional concerns around the Kenyan state accepting to use zakat with its Islamic conditions to finance public health. Firstly, it highlights the complexity and fluidity of legal systems, especially in situations where different legal frameworks interact, which necessitates an interdisciplinary approach. Secondly, it demonstrates that legal frameworks can influence each other, and their convergence may provide innovative solutions to complex legal problems. The application of the Islamic law on zakat to finance public health in Kenya provides new interpretations and understandings of human rights law's obligations to ensure maximum available resources for health. Thirdly, it shows the consideration of politics in the conceptualisation and use of law as having significant implications for the fields of human rights law, Islamic law, and constitutional law. The doctrinal and theoretical examinations presented in the thesis are challenged by the phenomenological accounts collected during fieldwork, shedding light on the ways that politics becomes embedded in how people conceptualise and use the law. This highlights the importance of understanding as part of socio legal scholarship how power dynamics, cultural and religious beliefs, and political structures influence the application and interpretation of legal principles, emphasising the need for scholars to incorporate a nuanced understanding of political realities when examining constitutional and religious legal frameworks.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Date Type: Completion
Status: Unpublished
Schools: Law
Subjects: K Law > KZ Law of Nations
Uncontrolled Keywords: civic reasoning, colonialisation, constitutional law, Covid-19, fiqh, fiscal space, halaqa, ijma, Islamic wealth taxation, Kenya, law and religion, legal positivism, maqasid al Shari’ah, maximum available resources phenomenology, politics and law, right to health, shura, socio-legal positivism, state discretion, Sunni Islam, zakat
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 13 April 2023
Last Modified: 14 Apr 2023 14:33
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/158837

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