ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- After Yul Edochie, the Nollywood actor and politician, announced that he has a second wife who has delivered a baby boy, debates about Nigeria‘s marriage laws and the interaction between Islamic polygamous marriages and civil marriages that do not permit polygamy have resurfaced.
- The Perlis Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council petitioned the High Court (Malaysia) to intervene in a case involving child custody between a Buddhist mother and a Muslim father.
- Millions of Muslims worldwide have paid the zakāt al-fitr or the alms of breaking the fast in Ramadan.
- The Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition reported receiving more domestic abuse assistance requests during Ramadan.
- In Malaysia, some states have made it a civil offense to sell food to Muslims during Ramadan or allow them to dine in during fasting hours.
- While “halal” has become synonymous with a certain cuisine in the US, owing this status partly to NYC‘s renowned “halal carts,” ḥalāl is “just an Arabic word describing permissible foods and meats under Islamic law — much as ‘kosher’ is in Judaism.”
- Egypt‘s Grand Muftī Shawki Allam recently stated that it is permissible under Islamic law for Muslims to break their fast with Christians during Ramadan.
- The efforts to legislate a Uniform Civil Code in India have once again gained momentum, while some Muslim civil society organizations have argued that a UCC would violate the Indian Constitution‘s provisions on religious equality.
- Mustafa Akyol, Muslim commentator and author, recently argued that blasphemy laws “only bring[] dishonor to Islam” and should be repealed throughout the Muslim world.
- Several Muslim organizations of the English-speaking world came together to form the Global Imams & Scholars Network.
ON COVID-19 AND ISLAMIC LAW
- Speaking to the New York Times, Imām Khalid Latif of the Islamic Center at New York University stated: “Islam teaches me that my physical wellness is linked to my emotional, my mental, my spiritual wellness. I’m not going to be able to care for other people’s hearts if I’m not taking care of my own heart.”
- As COVID-related restrictions have eased in many countries, Muslims around the world celebrated Eid al-Fitr together, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
UPCOMING EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES
Global Calendar:
- Conference: Clinical Legal Education, May 9-13, 2022.
- Webinar: AMECYS Friday Digital Author Series: Dr. Rania Kassab Sweis, Associate Professor of Anthropology, May 13, 2022.
- Postdoc opportunity: Islamic history and culture, University of Bergen. Deadline is May 22, 2022.
- Conference on Kurdish Family Law, Harnack House in Berlin, June 2-4, 2022.
- Workshop: Formation, Establishment, and Evolution of the Mālikī Madhhab, University of Laussane, June 4, 2022.
- Workshop: Intertextuality in Islamic and Jewish Law, June 21-23, 2022, University of Muenster.
- Conference: The Digital Orientalist’s Virtual Conference 2022, June 25, 2022.
- Call for Contributions: Special-Edition Journal, Pakistan, July 15, 2022.
- Society of Legal Scholars, 113th Annual Conference, King’s College London, September 6-9, 2022.
- Conference: Materiality, Rituals and the Senses in Shi‘i Islam, Georgia, October 19-21, 2022.
- 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.
- Call for Submissions: The UCLA School of Law’s Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law (JINEL).
- Call for Manuscripts: Advances in the Study of Islam, Edinburgh University Press.
- Request for Open Submissions: AALS 2023 Annual Meeting, January 4-7, 2023. Submission deadlines vary.