ABSTRACT
Criminal law in Arab countries catches public attention in the West only rarely, and then only on issues with a certain shock value, such as the amputation of thieves’ hands in Saudi Arabia or honor killings in Jordan.1 These phenomena are usually characterized as the ugly side of an undemocratic and less-developed foreign culture. However, I argue that such practices and the legal environments surrounding them should be understood as the product of a relationship among law, politics and culture that exists in all systems and is tied to political contestation and, ultimately, to state legitimacy. This relationship has especially important implications for democracy insofar as it defines the extent of equality and rights protection in a society.
