Between Secularising Jurisprudence and Rooted Law: Referential Hybridisation in Contemporary Arab Legislative Discourses

The relationship between Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh) and positive law has become increasingly complex due to the emergence of contemporary legislative models that combine religious legal references with modern statutory frameworks. Despite extensive scholarship on Islamic legal reform, constitutional recognition of Sharia, and legal modernisation, scholars have paid limited attention to how secularising tendencies within jurisprudential thought and the institutional rooting of Islamic legal principles interact to shape contemporary Arab legislative discourses. Accordingly, this study addresses three research questions: how contemporary Islamic jurisprudence has transformed under modern interpretative methodologies; how Arab legal systems have incorporated Islamic legal references into positive legislation through legal rooting; and how the interaction between these developments can be theoretically explained. Employing a qualitative doctrinal and comparative legal methodology, the study analyses classical Islamic jurisprudential sources, principles of Usul al-Fiqh , constitutional provisions, legislation, judicial practices, and relevant academic literature. The findings demonstrate that contemporary Arab legal systems have not followed a linear process of either secularisation or Islamization; rather, they have developed through a dynamic interaction between jurisprudential transformation and legislative integration. The study further reveals that this interaction produces a distinct phenomenon of referential hybridisation, characterised by methodological exchange, conceptual convergence, and institutional adaptation between Islamic jurisprudence and positive law. This research contributes by proposing referential hybridisation as a theoretical framework for understanding legally plural systems where multiple sources of authority coexist. This framework provides a new perspective for comparative legal studies and offers analytical tools for examining the future development of legislative systems operating between religious legitimacy and modern state authority.