ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- Women in Saudi Arabia‘s Dammam region are reported to have been allowed to assume administrative duties in all personal status courts, with expectations that the same policy will be implemented in other regions of the country.
- A credit union in Vermont announced that it would begin developing a lending program that will comply with Islamic law.
- The Wahed Dow Jones Islamic World ETF, “an index of companies globally that meet certain Shariah law requirements,” started trading today on Nasdaq.
- Startups focusing on lab-grown meat have faced opposition from Muslim and Jewish religious communities, with some scholars in Indonesia opining that such meat is un-Islamic since cells taken from animals and grown in labs are tantamount to “the category of carcass which is legally unclean and forbidden to be consumed.”
- The Taliban religious police have issued decrees urging Afghan women to use the burqa, with a spokesperson commenting: “If someone does not follow it, it does not mean she will be punished or beaten, it’s just encouragement for Muslim women to follow Sharia law.”
- The Taliban have also ordered shopkeepers to “cut the heads off mannequins, insisting figures representing the human form violate Islamic law.”
For more content and context on the recent developments in Afghanistan, consult our Editor-in-Chief, Professor Intisar Rabb‘s “Resource Roundup: Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Islamic Law.“
ON COVID-19 AND ISLAMIC LAW
- Connecticut has recently witnessed a surge of positive cases among its correction officers and incarcerated population – a phenomenon some argue may in part be due to the Nation of Islam‘s anti-vaccination stance.
UPCOMING EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Calendar:
- 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:
- 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.
- Postdoctoral position opening: Christian-Muslim communication, University of Konstanz. Deadline: April 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.