Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP

On Islamic Law:

• Religious Freedom in the Global South (MDPI Books, 2021), edited by Waheeda Amien (University of Cape Town), brings together articles written by various scholars that investigate “religious freedom in the Global South including the impact of religious freedom on majority and minority religious communities, the relationship between religious freedom and the state, and the relationship between religious freedom and other fundamental human rights.”
• In “Understanding Sharia: The Intersection of Islam and the Law” (Council on Foreign Relations, December 17, 2021), to which Editor-in-Chief, Professor Intisar Rabb, has substantially contributed, Kali Robinson (Council on Foreign Relations) provides a high-level summary of sharī’a, noting that “Sharia guides the personal religious practices of Muslims worldwide, but whether it should influence modern legal systems remains a subject of intense debate.”
• In “Did Don Quixote Long for Muslim Spain?” (Public Books, December 8, 2021), Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera (Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez) traces the possible influences of Islam on Cervantes and his magnum opus, Don Quixote.
• In “Between Qum and Qayrawān: Unearthing early Shii ḥadı̄th sources” (Bulletin of SOAS, December 20, 2021), Kumail Rajani (University of Exeter) “[b]y comparing the reports transmitted on the authority of al-Ḥalabī in the Twelver ḥadı̄th compendium originating in Qum, al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī, and an Ismaili legal ḥadı̄th composition, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s al-Īḍāḥ, composed in Qayrawān, […] demonstrate[s] that both works trace their material to an earlier Kūfan source of the second/eighth century, with each work drawing on the same material independently.”

On Islam and Data Science:

• In “On the Psychology of Argument: A Structural Analysis of Former Muslims’ Postings Within Malaysian Social Media” (Frontiers in Psychology (October 22, 2021)), Umair Munir Hashmi (Sultan Zainal Abidin University) and others “provide insights into the argumentation structures in the discussion of Islam on social media involving 14 Malaysian former Muslims,” concluding that “the arguments put forth by former Muslims, in the main, are loosely constructed rather than attempts to build a strong cumulative argumentation to support their reasons for abandoning the Muslim faith.”

FIELD GUIDE TO ISLAMIC LAW ONLINE: RECENT SOURCES

This Field Guide to Islamic Law Online is an ever-growing collection of links to hundreds of links to primary sources and archival collections around the world, online. We recently added new resources to this list:

• Collected works of Ayatullah Murtada Mutahheri compiles all the works of Ayayollah Motahhari in downloadable pdfs.
• Islamic Book “is a website that facilitates access to islamic books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all.”

UPCOMING EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES

PIL & Harvard Calendar:

• Position opening: Librarian for Islamic Art and Architecture, Harvard College Library. Deadline: January 3, 2022.
• Fellowships: Program on Law & Society in the Muslim World, Harvard Law School, 2022-2023. Deadline: January 15, 2022.
• Position opening: Senior Preceptor in Digital History, Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Deadline: January 21, 2022.
• Call for Applications: PIL–LC Research Fellowship Application, 2022-2023. Deadline: January 31, 2022.
• Call for Fellowship Applications: The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, 2022-2023. Deadline: January 31, 2022.

Global Calendar:

• Position opening: Open Rank Tenure Track Position, Islamic Art History, Pomona College, July 1, 2022. Deadline: January 1, 2022.
• Position opening: Assistant Professor, History of the Islamic World The Department of History at Central Connecticut State University. Deadline: January 1, 2022.
• Short-Term Fellowships: New-York Historical Society, July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023. Deadline: January 6, 2022.
• Position opening: Lehigh University, History Department Lawrence Henry Gipson Chair in Transnational History. Deadline: January 7, 2022.
• Call for Papers: Middle East Studies Association 2022 Panels. Deadline: January 10, 2022.
• Position opening: University Professor of Islamic Studies (Classical Islam), the Free University of Berlin. Deadline: January 20, 2022.
• Call for Papers: “The Middle Ages as a Digital Experience,” Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, April 21-23, 2022. Deadline: January 31, 2022.
• Call for Applications: Research Fellowship, Kamel Center at Yale Law School, 2022-2023. Deadline: January 31, 2022.
• Call for Papers: Theory and Practice of Rebellion, Hamburg, September 22-24, 2022. Deadline: February 1, 2022.
• Research Associate: The Evolution of Islamic Societies (c.600-1600 CE): Algorithmic Analysis into Social History. Deadline: March 31, 2022.
• Persian Language Summer School by Aspirantum, Yerevan (Armenia), July 3, 2022 – August 27, 2022. Deadline: April 21, 2022.
• Call for Applications: 2022 Temple Bar Scholarship. Deadline: April 30, 2022.
• Workshop: Intertextuality in Islamic and Jewish Law, June 21-23, 2022, University of Muenster.
• Conference: American Society for Legal History 2022, November 10-12, 2022.
• Position opening: Assistant Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Tennessee, Fall 2022. Deadline: until an appointment is made.
• Position opening: Columbia University, The Department of Art History and Archaeology Barbara Stoler Miller Assistant Professor, Indian and South Asian Art History. Deadline: until an appointment is made.
• Call for Applications: Interdisciplinary Scholars of Places, Movement and Cultural Practices Professor, New York University Abu Dhabi. Deadline: until the position is filled.
• Research Project: Historian/Researcher – Tudor Period/Elizabethan Era, and the Ottoman Empire during the Suleiman the Magnificent Period. Deadline: until the position is filled.