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58 Legal Pluralism & Critical Soc. Analysis 1 (2026)

handle is hein.journals/jlpul58 and id is 1 raw text is: LEGAL PLURALISM AND CRITICAL SOCIAL ANALYSIS Routledge 2026, VOL. 58, NO. 1, 1-19 https://doi.org/10.1080/27706869.2026.2655041 Taylor&Francis Group a OPEN ACCESS C ua The hybrid and asymmetrical pluralism of Shari'a and tribal justice in Syria: how history informs the present Dima Hussain# Department of Law, European University Institute, Florence, Italy ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY This article examines the evolving relationship between Shari'a and Received 29 September Bedouin tribal justice (al- urf al-qabali) in Idlib, Syria, under the 2025 quasi-state governance of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). It argues Accepted 3 February that their contemporary interaction is neither a wartime anomaly 2026 nor a simple Islamization of custom, but a historically situated KEYWORDS rearticulation of a long-standing relationship between indigenous Legal pluralism; normative orders shaped by shifting configurations of political and asymmetrical pluralism; social authority. Drawing on hybrid ethnographic fieldwork con- legal hybridity; Islamic ducted between 2018 and 2024, including in-person research and Shari'a; tribal justice; remote interviews, the article analyzes three case studies that non-state governance; reveal a hybrid yet asymmetrical legal order until the final phase Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham of opposition governance, prior to the political transition of late (HTS); Idlib (Syria) 2024. While Shari'a courts enjoy institutional and symbolic domi- nance under HTS, tribal justice remains socially embedded and pragmatically effective, operating within but not fully subordinated to the Shari'a framework. This asymmetry is relational and proces- sual, continually negotiated in practice. The article advances a rela- tional account of asymmetrical legal pluralism in conflict-affected settings. Introduction In the aftermath of the Syrian uprising of March 2011 and the collapse of state authority across large parts of the country, non-state legal orders have emerged as dominant mechanisms of governance and dispute resolution. Nowhere is this more visible than in Idlib governorate, where the Islamist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)' and other opposition military factions have, since 2012, established both separate and connected networks of Shari'a courts that supplanted the Syrian regime's judicial institutions.2 The withdrawal of the Syrian state from Idlib between 2011 and 2012 resulted in the complete collapse of formal judicial institutions, including the regime's civil CONTACT Dima Hussain ® dima.hussain@eui.eu 'Present address: Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Weber Program, Department of Law, European University Institute, Florence, Italy © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.