COMPARATIVE LAW OF RELIGIONS
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Full programme
- Bibliography
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
Students are requested to have an interest in understanding other cultures and religions and in studying religious laws and their role in plural societies.
Oral examination.
The aim of the course is to highlight the peculiar characteristics of religious laws and their role in regulating the lives of the faithful. The analysis of confessional juridical systems is particularly relevant today for the students in Intercultural Mediation, given the context of religious and cultural pluralism of today's societies: religious laws, in fact, are different from the secular ones, but increasingly interact with our societies.
Students must therefore demonstrate that they have acquired a basic knowledge of the fundamental characteristics of confessional rights and of the specificities and differences of religious rights with respect to secular ones, in a context of legal pluralism.
In addition, we intend to offer a knowledge of how the different religious laws regulate some issues relevant to the lives of the adherents and for their interaction with state legal systems in today’s societies (marriage, gender issues, religious rules concerning health and dietary rules).
Student must also demonstrate that they have acquired awareness of the context of legal pluralism of today's society in which the different religious traditions coexist. The skills to be achieved also concern the ability to make comparisons between different legal systems, and the ability to understand the different ways in which religious and secular laws apply.
The course is linked with that of laws and Religions in Multicultural Societies and, especially, with the course on Religious laws and Family and Community Mediation, in the Master degree.
In the first part of the course we will analyze the common characteristics of the different religious legal systems and the differences with the secular legal systems.
In the second part, the essential structures of each confessional right will be examined (sources, historical evolution, fundamental principles of Canon, Jewish and Islamic law).
In the third part of the course we will analyze how canon, Jewish and Islamic laws regulate some particular issues, that are relevant for the life of the adherents and for their interaction with state legal systems (marriage, relations between the sexes, religious rules about health and dietary rules).
- introduction to the comparative law of religions
- what are religious laws: their specificity and differences with secular rights
- overview on the historical development and sources of Canon, Jewish and Islamic law
- marriage in canonical, Jewish and Islamic law
- the relationship between the sexes and the status of women in religious laws
- Islamic veil and religious rules on clothing
- food rules in religious laws
- religious laws and health issues, e.g. circumcision, end of life.
Strumenti e percorsi di diritto comparato delle religioni, a cura di Silvio Ferrari, ed. il Mulino, Bologna 2019 (specific chapters will be indicated during the course). Further readings will be indicated during the course.
Classes will be held through lectures (giving the overall framework on the different subjects). Besides lessons, students will find documents, reading materials, power point presentations and videos uploaded via the E-learning platform. The teacher will assign also readings and documents on specific topics, in order to understand practical implications of the religious laws and to discuss some relevant issues.
Other teachers and researchers will participate in some lessons in order to provide a more in-depth analysis about some specific issues.
In the case of online course, lessons will be held both through Power Point presentations with audio recording and through “live” lessons via Microsoft Teams.
The teacher will be tutoring students by appointment via Microsoft Teams (contact through email).