The family is a crucial site for the interaction of law and religion the world over, including Africa. In many African societies, the family is governed by a range of sources of law, including civil, constitutional, customary and religious law. International law and human rights principles have been domesticated into African legal systems, particularly to protect the rights of women and children. Religious rites and rituals govern sexuality, marriage, divorce, child-rearing, inheritance, intergenerational relations and more in Christianity, Islam and indigenous African custom. This book examines the African family with attention to tradition and change, comparative law, the relation of parents and children to the state, indigenous religion and customary law, child marriage and child labour and migration, diaspora and displacement.

A shared interest of law and religion is the advancement of human flourishing, yet there is no common understanding of what it means for humans to flourish and the means by which to attain a flourishing life. The concept of human flourishing is especially important for Africa, where community and national development compete with forces of conflict and scarce resources. In the broadest sense, the concept of human flourishing focuses our attention on having a comprehensively good or worthwhile life, but various religious and legal traditions suggest different norms for measuring the quality of life and designing the institutional structures that could best facilitate and preserve it.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are important moments for the stability of a society and a state. Many African countries have gone through serious social crises in the post-colonial period: genocide, post-election crises, civil and internal conflicts, and outright war. Forgiveness and reconciliation have been necessary to reweave the social fabric and restart the construction of peaceful and prosperous societies. Chapters in this book examine the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and religious councils aimed at peace, along with African traditional approaches, mediation and arbitration councils, post-conflict contexts, and the roles of women and gender, philosophy and theology, and programs of education for peace.

The Covid‑19 pandemic was global in its spread and reach, as well as in its medical, social and economic effects. In many respects, the global effort to “flatten the curve” produced a flattening of experience around the world and a striking coincidence of similar experiences in countries the world over. The identity, simultaneity and uniformity of experience were also manifest in common concerns at the intersection of law and religion in many nations around the world, including Africa. The lockdowns and closure of religious worship centres – churches, mosques and religious organisations of all sorts – raised questions of freedom of religion and the related concern for freedom of assembly, along with concerns about the relation of religion to science and public health, religious channels of communication and religious provision of social services. After all, health, communications and social services are all areas in which African religious organisations play key roles. Potential tensions around these issues raised further considerations about the nature of religion-state relations, the status of religious authority and whether religious and state actors would work together or at odds in addressing the Covid‑19 pandemic.

This volume explores themes of ecotheology, ecofeminism, environmental pollution and degradation, climate change, human and environmental rights, sustainable development, human-animal relations through totem and taboo, sacred sites and spaces, and other environmental topics in ways that add immeasurably to the study of African environmentalisms and the interaction of law and religion. In terms of religion, the capability of humans not only to sin and destroy the earth, but also to repair and redeem it, is very much in evidence across Christianity, Islam and Africa’s many indigenous religious and cultural traditions. In terms of law, the need for effective policies and for states and governments to work with indigenous groups and communities towards environmental solutions is also apparent.

What is the place assigned to religion in the constitutions of contemporary States? What role is religion expected to perform in the fields that are the object of constitutional regulation? Is separation of religion and politics a necessary precondition for democracy and the rule of law? These questions are addressed in this book through an analysis of the constitutional texts that are in force in different parts of the world. Constitutions are at the centre of almost all contemporary legal systems and provide the principles and values that inspire the action of the national law-makers. After a discussion of some topics that are central to the constitutional regulation of religion, the book considers a number of national systems covering countries with a variety of religious and cultural backgrounds. The final section of the book is devoted to the discussion of the constitutional regulation of some particularly controversial issues, such as religious education, the relation between freedom of speech and freedom of religion, abortion, and freedom of conscience.

The family is a crucial site for the interaction of law and religion the world over, including Africa. In many African societies, the family is governed by a range of sources of law, including civil, constitutional, customary and religious law. International law and human rights principles have been domesticated into African legal systems, particularly to protect the rights of women and children. Religious rites and rituals govern sexuality, marriage, divorce, child-rearing, inheritance, intergenerational relations and more in Christianity, Islam and indigenous African custom. This book examines the African family with attention to tradition and change, comparative law, the relation of parents and children to the state, indigenous religion and customary law, child marriage and child labour and migration, diaspora and displacement.

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