El estatuto personal en derecho islámico
de la Puente, Cristina
ABSTRACT
This article revolves around the various personal statuses that Islamic jurisprudence has foreseen over the centuries. From a legal standpoint, «personal status» includes all those matters referring to individuals and their status within a community. It is therefore the cornerstone that determines a human being’s rights and obligations. Like other legal systems, Islamic law does not grant all individuals the same rights and obligations, but instead these differ in accordance with a range of criteria: being of legal age or not, gender, religion, being free or a slave (prior to the abolition of slavery), and so on. All of these factors will determine, on the one hand, whether the individual has or does not have «full legal capacity» and, on the other, which are the person’s «capacities to act» in different legal situations: marriage, divorce, trade, torts, emancipation, etc.
KEYWORDS
Personal status, legal capacity, legal guardianship, custody, dhimma, age of majority, sex/gender, marital status, motherhood/paternity, slavery.