In ¡°Bargaining in the Shadow of God.s Law: Islamic Mahr Contracts and the Perils of Legal Specialization,¡±2 Nathan Oman uses Islamic marriage contracts as the basis for reflecting upon the advantages of thinking about contract law in general terms, rather than as a series of different and unrelated transaction types subject to different rules and principles.3 In particular, Oman argues that seeing contracts as a series of different types of transactions can work against both good law and good outcomes in individual contract law cases, because the assumed narrative of a transaction type may be at odds with the precise context of the agreement before the courts. And this, Oman argues, is exactly what has happened with the Islamic marriage contracts and their mahr payment provisions.

In ¡°Bargaining in the Shadow of God.s Law: Islamic Mahr Contracts and the Perils of Legal Specialization,¡±2 Nathan Oman uses Islamic marriage contracts as the basis for reflecting upon the advantages of thinking about contract law in general terms, rather than as a series of different and unrel...