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only strong legal pluralism is worthy of empirical study, and thus essentially ignores weaker
forms of legal pluralism.
Yet scholars have raised a number of objections to Griffiths’ approach. 80 Ido Shahar
points out that Griffiths’ distinction between strong and weak legal pluralism leads scholars
away from using legal pluralism as a theoretical framework in Islamic societies, where the state
generally does grant some form of recognition to multiple legal orders (such as those of non-
Muslims). 81 Shahar proposes another meaning to the distinction between strong and weak legal
pluralism, one focused on institutions and legal actors rather than normative law. In Shahar’s
schema, strong legal pluralism occurs when an individual can engage in forum shopping—that
is, has the ability to choose a legal forum on the basis of where she thinks she will get the most
favorable outcome. Weak legal pluralism occurs when an individual is only able to appeal to the
particular legal forum to which she is assigned (presumably by the state) for a given case. 82
While Shahar’s conceptions of strong and weak legal pluralism are certainly more useful
for the purposes of this dissertation, I am most concerned with his emphasis on the viewpoint of
legal actors and institutions as opposed to normative law. 83 Rather than focusing exclusively on
how the state engaged with the various legal orders which existed under its auspices, I also ask
how these legal orders functioned in relation to one another and how individuals navigated
among them. Shahar suggests that we use legal pluralism to understand sharī‘a in the context of
non-shar‘ī legal orders; I take this proposition one step further by including non-Muslim legal
80
The most influential objection to legal pluralism, and particularly to Griffiths’ conception of it, was made by
Brian Tamanaha: Brian Z. Tamanaha, “The Folly of the ‘Social Scientific’ Concept of Legal Pluralism,” Journal of
Law and Society 20, no. 2 (1993). Tamanaha’s main point is that legal pluralists mischaracterize legal centralism,
largely by refusing to recognize the role of the state in determining what constitutes law (see esp. ibid., 201).
81
Ido Shahar, “Legal Pluralism and the Study of Shari‘a Courts,” Islamic Law and Society 15 (2008): 121-2.
82
Ibid., 123-4.
83
In this, he is influenced by Jacques Vanderlinden, “Return to Legal Pluralism: Twenty Years Later,” Journal of
Legal Pluralism 28 (1989).
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