Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP

On Islamic Law

• In “Moral Authority in Islamic Law: A Reflection of Khaled Abou Fadel” (GeoTimes, January 19, 2023), Rifqi Nurdiansyah, reviewing Fadel’s life and scholarship, writes: “Abou Fadel, born into traditionalist Sunni Islam, reconstructed the perception of Islamic law with a social context which inspired by western approach. “
• Influential Islamic scholar Sheikh Rashaad died at 96.
• In “Understanding Islamic Education in Russia: The Struggle over Identity and Belonging in Russia’s Muslim-Majority Regions” (CEPA, January 17, 2023), Alisa Shishkina (Center for European Policy Analysis) observes that “Russia’s long-running conflict with Ukraine and its full-scale war in 2022 have had an impact within Russia itself, including exacerbating problems that, for one reason or another, have festered for years. Among the most pressing is the question of the place of Islamic identities in Russian society.”
• In “Showing the Prophet Muhammad’s Paintings in a Classroom is Not Islamophobic” (Jurist, January 17, 2023), L. Ali Khan (Washburn University School of Law), writing on the recent controversy at Hamline University involving the display of a depiction of the Prophet, concludes: “In a classroom with diverse students, such as in US colleges and universities, functioning under robust free speech not available in many other countries, Islamophobia cannot be defined as blind submission to Muslim beliefs and practices. Islam does not impose its teachings on non-Muslims.”
• In “Can Islamic cryptocurrencies change the face of crypto in the Middle East?” (Captainaltcoin.com, January 20, 2023), Rene Peters observes that “widespread acceptance of blockchain technology comes with challenges, […] as Muslim scholars have been debating over what their faith stance shall be toward the crypto universe.”
• In “Non-Fiction: Demystifying the Council” (Dawn, January 22, 203), Sohail Akhtar (National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad) reviews Governance of Islam in Pakistan: An Institutional Study of the Council of Islamic Ideology (Sussex Academic Press, 2022) by Sarah Holz (Humboldt University).

On Islam and Data Science

• In “Perceived barriers to the Islamic concept of sustainability” (Indonesian Journal of Sustainability 1, no. 2 (2023)), Shujahat Ali (Mirpur University) and Jack Reardon (Hamline University), interviewing 16 students, find “some important barriers which create the hurdle in the way of establishing the concept of Islamic sustainable development.”
• In “Halal Healthcare Services: Patients’ Satisfaction and Word of Mouth Lesson from Islamic-Friendly Hospitals” (Sustainability 15, no. 2 (2023)), Muhammad Khalilur Rahman (Universiti Malaysia Kelantan) and others, using data from 309 Muslim patients, assess patient satisfaction with sharī’a-compliant hospitals.

FIELD GUIDE TO ISLAMIC LAW ONLINE: RECENT SOURCES

The 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:

• Law and Religion: Law and Religion Home, maintained by Brigham Young University, provides a collection of secondary literature relating to law and religion (including Islamic law) as well as a section titled “selected websites” that provides access to online sources.
• Islamic Law : The Koran (aka Qur’an) and Other Primary Sources, maintained by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “is a brief guide to selected University of Wisconsin campus and electronic resources for research in Islamic law.”

UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

PIL & Harvard Calendar:

• Student work opportunity: Research assistant, Widener Library, Harvard University.
• 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:

• 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.