ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- “The Sindh High Court (SHC) [in Pakistan] has issued repeated notices to the Sindh Child Protection Authority (SCPA) and parents of a teenage girl on a petition of Zaheer Ahmed who sought custody of his wife in case pertaining to allegations of underage marriage.”
- “Finance Minister Ishaq Dar [of Pakistan] […] announced all-out support for efforts being made for the implementation of Federal Shariat Court’s (FSC) judgement on Riba-free banking and the Islamic finance system.”
- “The Pakistani parliament passed a unanimous resolution on Tuesday, saying the government should strive to bring all existing laws in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as per the Holy Quran and Sunnah.”
- “On Jan. 17, 2023, Pakistan’s National Assembly unanimously voted to expand the country’s laws on blasphemy, which carries the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.”
- “The Islamic world is worried about the Taliban‘s interpretation of Islam as it poses political challenges. The Taliban has enforced Sharia laws based on their own interpretation of Islam, according to Dubai-based media network Al Arabiya Post.” 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.”
- “A 37-year-old woman [in Malaysia] embroiled in a legal battle over her religious status has turned to the Federal Court in an attempt to set aside a Court of Appeal decision reinstating her as a Muslim.”
- “The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) announced today that Representative Joaquin Castro, Congressman for the 20th District of Texas; Amaney A. Jamal, Dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and scholar of Middle Eastern politics; and, as an honorary member, Senator Todd Young from Indiana, will join its Board of Directors.”
- Professor John Gatsi, dean of Cape Coast Business School (Ghana), urged the government to create flexible legal structures to accommodate Islamic banking, noting that Islamic financial products benefit both Muslims and non-Muslims.
- Writing on the recent controversy at Hamline University, after it dismissed a scholar for showing a depiction of the Prophet to her students, Christiane Gruber, professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan, commented that “it is absolutely critical that we liberate iconic Islamic paintings from the yoke of (cheap) Euro-American satirical cartoons.”
- Commenting on the Hamline University controversy, as well as Harvard Kennedy School‘s initial decision to disinvite Human Rights Watch‘s former head from a fellowship allegedly because of HRW’s “anti-Israel bias,” Robin Abcarian wrote: “It’s sad that it took national outcries for Harvard and Hamline to reverse terrible decisions.”
- “Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s main opposition party’s presidential candidate, has always had an appetite for big battles. During his tenure as Nigeria’s vice president between 1999 and 2007, Abubakar opposed the wave of adoption of Islamic law across parts of the country’s Muslim-majority north, the highest-profile Muslim politician from the region to do so.”
- “The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) passed a resolution on Sunday (6 February) against the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) implementation, calling it “irrelevant” for a multi-religious country.”
- According to a draft law announced by Saudi Arabia authorities, “[i]t is not permissible to name any public firm after the names of any kings of Saudi Arabia or the Crown Prince or heads of state of friendly countries, except with the approval of the higher authorities.”
- “The Council of Churches Malaysia (CCM) has welcomed the Johor Islamic authority’s move to issue a fatwa on the types of events hosted by other faiths that Muslims can attend, and which ones the religion prohibits them from participating.”
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.
- Fellowship: Program in Islamic Law: Research Fellowships, 2023-2024, February 15, 2023.
- Talk: “Early Modern Money Between England and the Ottoman Empire” by Ellen M. Nye, Charles Warren Center, Harvard Law School, February 23, 2023.
- Call for Applications: The Inaugural Harvard-Zaytuna Thesis Symposium, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University, March 3-5, 2023.
- SHARIAsource Lab :: Hackathon: Arabic OCR Community Scribes, March 4, 2023.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series :: Haroun Rahimi (The American University of Afghanistan), “Taliban and Modernity,” Harvard Law School, March 14, 2023.
- Position opening: Program in Islamic Law: Data Science Fellowships, 2023-2024, March 31, 2023.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series :: Elizabeth Lhost (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia, Harvard Law School, April 4, 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.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series :: Dilyara Agisheva (Harvard Law School), “The Entangled Legal Formations and the Russian annexation of Crimea in the 18th century,” Harvard Law School, May 2, 2023.
- Prize: Alwaleed Bin Talal Graduate Thesis Prize, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University, May 19, 2023.
Global Calendar:
- Seminar: NES Seminar Series: Matthew Delvaux, 202 Jones Hall at Princeton University, Monday, February 13, 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.
- Conference: The Maghrib in Massachusetts, UMass Boston, February 25, 2023.
- Call for Papers: Secularism as a Value, Princeton, New Jersey, March 1, 2023.
- Call for Papers: Fall 2023 Works-in-Progress Workshop on Comparative Constitutional Law in the Global South, Columbia Law School, 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.
- Conference: Policing Issues in the 21st Century, AALS, April 28, 2023.
- Conference: Seventh Conference for Junior Researchers, The Law and Society Association at Stanford Law School (LSAS), May 5, 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.
- Call for Papers: Special Issue of Religions: “A Critique of the Modern Discourse of Maqāṣid,” September 15, 2023.
- Fall 2023 Works-in-Progress Workshop: Comparative Constitutional Law in the Global South, Columbia Law School, October 20-21, 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.