There are plenty of reasons to say that it is. The corpus of revealed prooftexts is closely guarded and ranked by the decisions of hadith critics of old. The meaning of each word is governed by prescribed literal interpretations that must be followed in the absence of contrary evidence. When prooftexts conflict, abrogation settles the … Continue reading Is Islamic Legal Theory Conservative?
:: Commentary :: Organic Labeling: Reconciling Religious Freedom and Animal Welfare in the European Union
By Zahra Takhshid Introduction On February 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued an opinion mandating the stunning of an animal before slaughter to satisfy the EU organic labeling.[1] The decision came after several European countries including Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Slovenia, removed any religious exemption for animal slaughter without stunning.[2] While this … Continue reading :: Commentary :: Organic Labeling: Reconciling Religious Freedom and Animal Welfare in the European Union
Weekend Scholarship Roundup
In "An Unlikely Champion of Women’s Rights under Muslim Personal Law: Mawdudi on Anglo-Muhammadan Law," Islamic Law & Law of the Muslim World eJournal, Shahbaz Ahmad Cheema analyzes Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi's book Huquq al-Zawjayn written during British Raj, which has generated debates in the post-colonial legal landscape of Pakistan on issues related to women's rights in … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
Istanbul conference brings postclassical uṣūl al-fiqh into the limelight
The academic study of Islamic legal theory in the English–speaking world has been marked by several landmark gatherings: in Princeton (1983), Alta, Utah (1999), and Istanbul (2016 and now October 2019). The latest, held October 15–17 at Istanbul University, for the first time gave equal attention to the formative, classical, postclassical, and modern periods of … Continue reading Istanbul conference brings postclassical uṣūl al-fiqh into the limelight
Welcome to our November Guest Blogger: David Vishanoff
It's a pleasure to introduce our guest blog editor for November: David Vishanoff, Associate Professor of Islamic studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Throughout the month of November, Professor Vishanoff will share a series of posts on a variety of topics related to research, teaching, and the state of the field. … Continue reading Welcome to our November Guest Blogger: David Vishanoff
In the News: China Cracks Down on the Hui Minority
News coverage on crackdowns in China have predominantly covered the plight of the Uighurs. However, efforts to strip the members of the Hui minority in China of their religious heritage are underway. The Hui, who number 10 million, hoped that the state crackdown would not arrive in the Gansu province, as it had in Xinjiang. … Continue reading In the News: China Cracks Down on the Hui Minority
Weekend Scholarship Roundup
In "The Mecelle, Sharia, and the Ottoman State: Fashioning and Refashioning of Islamic Law in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," Law and Legality in the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey, Samy Ayoub explores how the creation of the Mecelle, the first Islamic Civil Law code, in 1876 was justified by its drafters. The author contextualizes her research … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
Thank you, Ahmad A. Ahmad!
It is time to bid farewell to our guest blogger for the month of October. Please join me in thanking Ahmad A. Ahmad for his thoughtful series of posts this month comparing and reflecting about Islamic and Roman law. In case you missed any of them, here they are compiled: Let's Lose Lawyers (1-4) Let's … Continue reading Thank you, Ahmad A. Ahmad!
Commentary :: Let’s Lose Lawyers – Afterthoughts
Two points remain to be made at the end of this series, arising from a reaction to, and an interaction of relevance to, the previous blog posts. First, an excellent graduate student at Istanbul Şehir University (Ali Rıza Işın), who is as far as one gets from being a naïve individual, decided to feign naiveté and … Continue reading Commentary :: Let’s Lose Lawyers – Afterthoughts
Law and Economic Life in the Islamic World: A Teaching Post
By Fahad Ahmad Bishara. Reposted from the Legal History Blog with permission from the author. For this post, instead of giving reflections on research or on writing in Indian Ocean legal history, I thought I’d write about something lots of us do and talk about: teaching. It is, after all, that time in the semester, isn’t it? … Continue reading Law and Economic Life in the Islamic World: A Teaching Post