About Us 1

BRIEF PROFILE OF THE CENTRE FOR ISLAMIC LEGAL STUDIES, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA

The Centre for Islamic Legal Studies was established as a Centre in the University in 1965 by the first Vice-Chancellor of A.B.U. (a Briton) to fulfil the dream of the Late Premier of Northern Region who nurtured the idea of establishing a Centre that would be saddled with the mandate of research in Islamic Law.  The Centre in its 55 years of existence has had 16 Directors, with the sixteenth Director, Professor M.B. Uthman currently at the helm of affairs.  As a research centre, the Centre is one of the most active research centres in the university that serves as a rallying point for all Muslims in Nigeria irrespective of their sect.

The Mandate of the Centre includes; training of judges on Islamic Legal Studies, sensitization of the Muslim ummah on Islamic Legal matters, organizing annual conferences for Judges on novel maters relating to Sharia law.  Recently on the 11^th – 12^th December, 2019 the Centre organized its 20^th Annual Judges Conference with the theme “Documentation of Contracts in Islamic Law:  Procedure, Sample Precedents and Practice” which took place at the Faculty of law Moot court, Kongo Campus, A.B.U., Zaria.  A large number of participants attended including the Chief Justice of the Nigeria, Grand Qadis of several states, High Court Judges, Federal High Court Judges, Justices National Industrial Court, etc.  Several papers were presented and thoroughly discussed at the Conference.  It was observed at the end of the conference that Islamic Law has a unique mode of documentation of contracts even more unique compared to the modern system of documentation of contracts.  However, the Islamic mode of documentation of contract is not widely recognized in Nigeria.

The Conference rose with a mandate – to create greater awareness about the need to strengthen the legal basis of Islamic financial transactions, by way of addressing the available options for filling the legislative/statutory vacuum that has hampered the smooth running of Islamic financial transactions in Nigeria.