In the 1950s under King Idris, completely new codes based on French and Italian civil law were drafted, including the Commercial Code of 1953 and the Civil Code of 1954. The latter was written by Abd El-Razzak El-Sanhuri, the author of the 1948 Egyptian Civil Code, which itself was based on the French civil law, but also recognised sharia and Arab customs as a source of law. Arab customs were ranked by Article I of the Libyan code as third as a source of law in Libya, behind sharia; this compares to its ranking of second, ahead of sharia, in other countries adopting Sanhuri codes such as Egypt and Iraq. European laws were imported and applied in fields where sharia law was less developed, namely commercial law, procedural law, and penal law. Islamic influence remained in some areas of commercial law too, however; Libya was the first country adopting the Sanhuri code to prohibit riba (usury).
