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The debate of rule of law concept(s) cannot be concerned with only the views put forward by the maîtres à penser of “Western” countries – at least for those rejecting a parochial “Eurocentric” bias. It is obvious that the attitude of “Western” intellectuals towards the “rule of law” is different from the attitude raised by “non-Western” (trained) partners, such as those who belong to the “Islamic World”. While “Westerners” belong to a historically unified tradition - even while it is open to different interpretations and outcomes -, “non-Westerners” look at the tradition “from outside” and compare it to their own (legal-) cultural forms (Costa / Zolo 2007: ix-xiii). Due to fact the term’s origin is “Western”, it requires a clarification as to the context in Islamic modeled states. That said, this article attempts to give an insight into the discourse of the rule of law in Islamic modeled states in general. The evolution of legal theory within current Muslim context cannot easily be equated with the general “Western” understanding of ‘rule of law’ due to inherently different historical and traditional Islamic influences, which is therefore why I use the term “Islamic modeled”. On the basis of the wide and especially complex field, it is, accordingly, neither possible to discuss all notions nor the entire spectrum of national views in the “Islamic World” (see the country reports on Afghanistan (Elliesie 2010b), Egypt (Elliesie 2010c), Sudan (Elliesie 2010d), Iran (Moschtaghi 2010)).
II. Sharī’a and State Law
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