FROM KANON TO QĀNŪN: A NEOLOGICAL TRAJECTORY BACKWARDS

Abstract

It is a common misconception that Arab rights are essentially inspired by religious sources known as šarī'a. Similarly, it is prevalent that most legal norms are based on religious content, inferring that Islam regulates all spheres of life, be they ritual, transactional or criminal. Nonetheless, the classical Arabic language uses the name qānūn in its thesaurus, since the 10th century, borrowing it from the Greek kanôn (Κανών) as a reference to the norms, human and temporal, that the sovereigns and Doctors of Law enacted and applied.

In this study, we shall review this term, qānūn, to explore its origins and highlight the circumstances of its gradual integration into the classical and modern Arabic language. This term now appears as the unique equivalent denoting the positive legal field corresponding to the notions of law, norms and duties imposed by a given State. Such meanings seem to have been entrenched over the centuries and eventually referred to the current codes and laws governing Tunisia. However, far from being a technical word encompassing all laws and provisions, this term is sometimes brandished, for political purposes, by the Tunisian state to extol the conformity of its policy with the law.