4.CONCLUSION: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE EGYPTIAN CIVIL CODE AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE SHARF'A
The theory governing the sources of law in the Egyptian civil code has endorsed the principles of natural law and rules of justice as a supplementary or reserve source of law (Article 1, Paragraph 1, Egyptian Civil Code); they are second in rank to the principles of Islamic law, Shari'a.42 The judge may have recourse to them in case the legislations, customs or the Shari'a do not provide a principle to govern relations between the litigant parties.
The principles of natural law and the rules of justice constitute a major source of the components of the western legal edifice with both its general and subsidiary systems. These principles43 play a pivotal and functional role in the overall legal structure and endow it with legitimacy, while ensuring a minimum of integration between its component parts.In the context of the Egyptian civil code there exists a predominant view whereby when adopting the provisions of Islamic jurisprudence, consideration should be given to co-ordinating these provisions with the general rules and principles underlying civil legislations in general. It is in fact inadmissible to adopt a provision of Islamic jurisprudence which would run counter to one of these principles, as this would jeopardize its cohesiveness and harmony (Badrawy, 1969/70: 225).
The idea behind such a trend is that both in theory and application there is no conflict between the principles of the Shari'a and those of natural law or the rules of justice. This is so because the latter principles constitute one of the fundamentals of modern legislation in western legal patterns, and their basic theories would be preponderant in cases of recourse to the principles of Islamic jurisprudence and in cases of conflict between them and the general overall principles of the civil code. However, practical experience indicates the presence of a certain conflict between the Shari'a and the general principles of law and justice as we have earlier indicated in our analysis.