ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- “Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that overturning restrictions against women is not a priority for the group.” The United Nations said that Taliban is divided on the issue.
- “Nine men were lashed in public in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday [January 17, 2023] as punishment for different crimes under the country’s new rulers, a Taliban-appointed official said.”
- Initially prohibiting the display of all mannequins, the Taliban has decreed that mannequins are permissible but that their heads must be covered. 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.”
- “The crackdown on anti-establishment protests in Iran has led prominent Shiite clerics in both Iran and Iraq to call on the Islamic Republic to halt the violence and listen to popular demands.”
- “An Iranian man has been jailed for more than eight years after decapitating his wife and displaying her head in public in a case that shocked the country, the judiciary said Wednesday.”
- “Iranian conservative politician and former diplomat Javad Larijani has defended stoning for adultery, saying it is a good Islamic law protecting ‘family values.'”
- “Prisoner Saman Nabi Garousi was executed […] at Karaj Central Penitentiary, in northern Iran, over drug-related offences.” For more content and context on harsh interpretations and applications of Islamic criminal law, consult our Editor-in-Chief, Professor Intisar Rabb’s “Resource Roundup: Islamic Criminal Law.” For more news blurbs relating to harsh applications of Islamic criminal law, consult our “Islamic Criminal Law in the News Roundup.”
- Experts have argued that Indonesia is “a natural market for companies offering fintech products and services that comply with Islamic law.”
- “It is everyone’s religious and constitutional duty to develop and carry out a plan for converting Pakistan‘s financial system to one that is free of riba in accordance with Islamic law, experts said at a seminar.”
- “The [F]ederation’s counsel […] argued before the [S]upreme Court of [P]akistan that unless the court identifies the constitutional prohibition it cannot strike down the law.”
- “Renowned scholar Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani […] issued a Fatwa (decree) that any armed activity against the state of Pakistan was a ‘rebellion’, which was ‘haram’ and proscribed according to the Islamic law.”
- Christiane Gruber (University of Michigan) has started a Change.org petition in support of Dr. Erika López Prater who was dismissed from her position after showing a depiction of the Prophet to her students.
- “The Elders Consultative Forum of Supreme Council for Shariah, Oyo State chapter [of Nigeria] has called on the Oyo State Government to establish Shariah Court in the state.”
- “Despite […] adverse developments in the western world, the Islamic finance industry has […] weathered the storm exceptionally well. “
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Calendar:
- Student work opportunity: Research assistant, Widener Library, Harvard University.
- Position opening: Program in Islamic Law: Research Fellowships, 2023-2024, February 15, 2023.
- Visiting Fellowships: Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World, Harvard Law School, 2023-2024, February 15, 2023.
- Call for Applications: The Inaugural Harvard-Zaytuna Thesis Symposium, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University, March 3-5, 2023.
- Position opening: Program in Islamic Law: Data Science Fellowships, 2023-2024, March 31, 2023.
- Seminar: “The Rule of Recognition and the Consolidation of the Maliki Madhhab in the 14th Century” by Mohammad Fadel, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University, April 6, 2023.
- Prize: Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University, April 14, 2023.
- Workshop: Arabic Manuscript Workshop, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University, April 24-28, 2023.
- Prize: Alwaleed Bin Talal Graduate Thesis Prize, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University, May 19, 2023.
Global Calendar:
- Fellowship: Center for Arabic Study Abroad, 2023-2024, January 30, 2023.
- The Abdallah S. Kamel Center at the Yale Law School Fellowship, 2023-2024, January 31, 2023.
- Call for Panel Sponsorship: MEM Panel Sponsorship at MESA 2023, February 1, 2023.
- Book launch: “Public Freedoms in the Islamic State” by Rached Ghannouchi, The Abdallah S. Kamel for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization at the Yale Law School, February 14, 2023.
- Call for Papers: MESA Annual Meeting 2023, Montréal, Québec, Canada, February 16, 2023.
- Workshop: Digital Medieval Studies Institute, NYU DC, February 22, 2023.
- Call for Papers: Secularism as a Value, Princeton, New Jersey, March 1, 2023.
- Call for Panels: Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) 11th Biennial Conference, University of Ghana-Legon, March 15, 2023.
- Call for Papers: Interdisciplinary Conference on Islamic Law in the Crucible of the Modern State: Problems and Perspectives, University of Muenster, Germany, March 20, 2023.
- 2023 Law and Humanities Interdisciplinary Workshop: 22nd meeting of the Law and Humanities Interdisciplinary Workshop, Georgetown Law Center, Washington, DC, May 24-25, 2023.
- Call for Papers: Munich Summer Institute 2023 & Ph.D. Workshop, May 24-26, 2023.
- The Graduate Student & Early Career Workshop: Law and Society Association, May 31, 2023.
- Annual meeting: Law & Society Association’s Annual Meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 1-4, 2023.
- Summer Course: Thinking with Islamicate Manuscripts: Critical Approaches to Historical Methodology, History of Collections, and Digital Tools In Islamic Studies, July 3-7, 2023, Central European University (application deadline: February 14, 2023).
- Conference: Interdisciplinary Conference on Islamic Law in the Crucible of the Modern State: Problems and Perspectives, University of Muenster, Germany, July 10-12, 2023.
- 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).
- Workshop: TraSIS (Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies) and the BCDSS (Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies) Murtensee, August 30, 2023 – September 1, 2023.
- Position opening: Adjunct Lecturer in Modern Middle East, 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.
- MEM Fellowship for Graduate Students of Color.
- Scholarship: Islamic Scholarship Fund CAMBA Law Scholarship 2023.