IN SUMMARY: SHARIAsource Explores Challenges and Opportunities for promoting Scholarship Online with Other Digital Platforms for the Study of Islam (BU Workshop, hosted by Professor Michael Pegrill)

SHARIAsource participated at the workshop Activism, Advocacy, and Scholarship on Islam in the Digital Realm at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies on September 16th. Hosted by Michael Pregill, the workshop consisted of three panels, each of which focused on a different intersection between digital media and Islamic studies. Professor Intisar Rabb and executive director Paul Beran presented SHARIAsource as part of the digital humanities panel, presenting the portal alongside other projects working to apply or create digital tools from Islamic law. Panels on digital activism and digital journalism followed. The gamut of applications varied from in-depth traditional journalism to tools designed for meta-research on Islamic regions of the world, to textual analyses of medieval texts. Each application sought to contextualize Islamic law to rein in hyperbolic general perceptions. Of particular help to SHARIAsource was the opportunity to place itself in academia’s current digital landscape, as summarized by Beran’s comment that “Bridging research and discussion from the academy to users of it in the general public is important. The people and projects highlighted at the workshop provided a lot of food-for-thought that will help us develop SHARIAsource.”