Conclusions
By the formal end of the transitional period in Palestine, the shari'a court system was established institutionally and constitutionally within the framework of governance of the emerging Palestinian state.
Politically, leading members of the shar'i establishment have addressed both the President of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Legislative Council on matters of both system and substance, and have sought to maintain a degree of authority over the process of unification of Muslim personal status laws through engaging in drafting processes, of which at least that overseen by Shaykh Tamimi, the Deputy Qadi al-Quda, appears to have produced a preliminary draft. There has also been a degree of engagement with, and regard for some of the concerns of, civil society actors, notably from the women’s movement, on particular matters of personal status, which have drawn reform-minded responses within the framework of ‘shari'a,-based law justified on the legitimacy of interpretation and the public interest or the needs of society. Procedural measures have been used to address a number of such concerns in advance of any change to substantive law.Positive engagement of this kind might in the future provide the Deputy Qadi al-Quda with differently located allies in civil society in the likely event of disagreement with his positions on certain points of law from others among the 'ulama, already indicated on some points by the Mufti, Shaykh Sabri. Given Hammami’s finding of a ‘doxa’ of the framework offiqh∕shari'a to govern Muslim personal status law in Palestine, along with general support for the idea of reform of the codified family law, such engagement might prove the focus of significant investment by elements of the women’s movement, including those working for the equality paradigm, along with their continued engagement of the legislative and executive authorities.