Islamic Law in the News Roundup

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ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS

  • The 1989 fatwā imposed by Iran‘s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Salman Rushdie has sparked a more general debate on fatwās in Islamic law and their implementation.  Some scholars have drawn attention to the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia in terms of political ambitions in the region as well as religious differences (Shī’ī vs. Sunnī) and that Khomeini’s original fatwā should be understood against this backdrop.   “[T]he successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, the second Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei, has never recanted the original [fatwā] and has insisted on occasion that it is irrevocable.
  • “Saudi Arabia has executed 120 people in the first six months of 2022, according to a rights organization, nearly double the number put to death in all of last year despite its promises to reduce capital punishment.”  The country has also executed juvenile offenders, despite earlier promises to stop the practice.
  • “The Supreme Court [of India] on Tuesday observed that the Islamic practice of Talaq-e-Hasan, in which a man can divorce his wife by pronouncing ‘talaq’ once a month for three months, is ‘Prima Facie…not so improper.’ A two-judge bench said, “[In practice] women also have an option. ‘Khula’ is there.’ As per Islamic law, women can divorce their husbands through ‘Khula.'”
  • “A group of religious leaders in Somaliland [have] attempt[ed] to replace a progressive sexual offen[s]es law passed in 2018 with a revised version that protects rapists rather than survivors and allows child marriage.”
  • The government [of Malaysia,] through the Legal Affairs Division and the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC)[, announced it] is studying alternative punishments to replace caning which is seen as cruel and inhumane.

ON COVID-19 AND ISLAMIC LAW

  • “Amid COVID surge, Iran cut corners to approve [a] yet-unproven vaccine. “

UPCOMING EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES

PIL & Harvard Calendar:

  • Position opening: Tenure-Track Harvard Professor in the History of Modern Africa, Harvard University, September 19, 2022.
  • Student work opportunity: Research assistant, Widener Library, Harvard University.
  • Call for Papers: The 22nd Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, Harvard University, November 28, 2022.

Global Calendar:

  • Position opening: Associate Director and Chief Curator, The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, August 31, 2022.
  • Call for Papers: IMC 2023: Networks & Entanglements, August 31, 2022.
  • Call for Applications: MEM Fellowship for Graduate Students of Color, September 1, 2022.
  • Society of Legal Scholars, 113th Annual Conference, King’s College London, September 6-9, 2022.
  • International Conference: Historicizing the Shiʿi Hadith Corpus, Leiden University, September 12-14, 2022.
  • Position opening: Assistant Professor in Islamic Studies, Occidental College, September 15, 2022.
  • Position opening: Temple University Beasley School of Law, Fall 2023.
  • Call for Papers: “Succession in Islamic Law,” Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, September 15, 2022.
  • Panel: Religion after Roe, John Carroll University, September 19, 2022.
  • Position opening: Assistant Professor in Islamic Studies, Stanford University, September 30, 2022.
  • Conference: Materiality, Rituals and the Senses in Shi‘i Islam, Georgia, October 19-21, 2022.
  • Call for Papers: The Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law’s Forthcoming Volume 22 (2022), October 21, 2022.
  • Conference: American Society for Legal History 2022, November 10-12, 2022.
  • 2022 ASLH Conference: The Johnson Program for First Book Authors (American Bar Foundation), November 10, 2022 @ 9:00 am – 5:00 pm.
  • 2022 ASLH Conference: Shifting Criminal Legal Landscapes in 19th-Century Habsburg and Ottoman Borderlands (Missouri), November 11, 2022 @ 1:15 pm – 2:40 pm.
  • 2022 ASLH Conference: Many Peoples, Many Laws: Legal Pluralism Across the Medieval World (Ontario), November 12, 2022 @ 2:05 pm – 3:35 pm.
  • 2022 ASLH Conference: Islamic Law and Agriculture in Global History, 1850-1950 (Superior A), November 12, 2022 @ 10:15 am – 11:45 am.
  • Call for Papers: Regulative Verses of the Qur’ān (āyāt al-aḥkām), Al Mahdi Institute, November 25, 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.
  • Position opening: Associate Director, Center for Religious and Spiritual Life and Muslim Chaplain, Macalester College (priority given to applications by August 1, 2022).
  • Position opening: Adjunct lecturer, Babson College.
  • 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.

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