Islamic Law & Law of the Muslim World eJournal: September 18

This article seeks to address this scholarly and discursive void, and at minimum, commence scholarly investigation into the Travel Ban’s impact beyond the border. It examines the deployment of the Travel Ban as a domestic War on Terror tool, and the counterterror risks it poses for Muslim immigrants, residents and citizens within the U.S. Far beyond airport checkpoints and the jurisdiction of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Travel Ban is wielded by FBI agents and their on-the-ground watchdogs to: (1) brand immigrants from the prohibited states as potential ‘radicals,’ a designation that can prompt their removal or deportation by ICE; and (2) as leverage to intimidate, pressure and subsequently enlist Muslim immigrants to work as community informants by FBI and local enforcement, trading stay from deportation and other incentives in exchange for working within the CVE policing framework. Beyond the effect on immigrants, the Travel Ban’s extreme vetting, and data gathering, of all parties traveling to the restricted states also exposes Muslim citizens and LPR’s to enhanced threat of CVE suspicion and investigation, which circumscribes and chills protected First Amendment activity.

“Repossessing Property in South Asia: Land, Rights, and Law Across the Early Modern/Modern Divide” by Faisal Chaudhry.

 

In this extended review essay, which introduces the special double issue on “Repossessing Property in South Asia: Land, Rights and Law Across the Early Modern/Modern Divide,” I consider existing historical scholarship on land control and proprietary right in the Indian subcontinent in order to contextualize the contribution made by the articles that follow. Dividing earlier writings — by historians and anthropologists since the 1950s — into three phas- es/thematics, the introduction shows how work on South Asia has long grappled with property both as a material relation and as an alien cultural category. Making the case that we must think about property’s conceptual history as being necessitated by more than just the critique of Eurocentrism, the essay clarifies how the articles that follow both continue and extend past discussion. Overall, it argues that by providing integrated perspectives on property’s material and ideational dimensions, our articles will be illuminating both to scholars of Afro-Asia and those interested in law, political economy and political culture more generally.