Description

Qatar is an Arab emirate in Southwest Asia, located on the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coat of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Arabia to the south and the Persian Gulf surrounds the rest of the state. The Qatari peninsula protrudes 100 miles into the Persoan gulf from Saudi Arabia. The country consists of low, barren plains covered with sand. Located in the southeastern part of the country, the Khor al Adaid, "Inland Sea," is an area of rolling sand dunes surrounding an inlet of the Persian Gulf. The climate consists of mild winters and very hot humid summers.

In Qatar, a framework of an absolute monarchy takes place, where the Emir of Qatar is head of state and head of government. No political parties are allowed and elections are not held on a national level. A discretionary system of law is present and controlled by the emir, although civil codes are being implemented and Islamic law is significant in personal matters. The Qatari law is very liberal but still not as liberal as some of its neighbors.

After liberalization, Qatar became the first country in the Persian Gulf where women gained the right to vote. Qatar has slowly become more liberalized but are cautious of becoming too liberal. Sunni law is used as the basis of its government and an immense majority of its citizens follow Hanbali Madhhab. Hanbali is one of the four schools of the religious laws within Sunni Islam. It is believed by Sunni Muslims, that all four schools provide guidance and the difference between them lie in finer judgments and jurisprudence. As a result, there is independent reasoning of the imams and the scholars who followed them. Due to the individual methodologies of interpretation and extraction from the primary sources being different, different judgments were made on particular matters.

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