ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- Singapore, invoking the Internal Security Act, detained two people it considered to have “self-radicalized” by listening to speeches and statements made by Ismail Menk, “a Zimbabwean Salafi preacher, [who] has been banned from preaching in Singapore since 2015, because of his segregationist teachings, which promote religious disharmony.”
- “Kenya Muslims National Advisory Council (Kemnac) national chairman Juma Ngao said universities lacked Muslim scholars, and urged those with the prerequisite training to seek employment in local institutions of higher learning.”
- Kenya Muslims National Advisory Council held its inaugural meeting, calling for unity in East Africa.
- “The Darul Uloom Deoband, the largest seminary in India has issued a fatwa warning students against shaving or trimming their beards.”
- The Washington Post reported that “[a] year and a half later, the Taliban has gutted the country’s justice system in its campaign to forge a religious emirate, by scrapping the constitution and replacing the legal code with rules based on a draconian interpretation of Islamic law. ” 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.”
- “[T]he Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights [of Pakistan] held a meeting where the body discussed the different proposed amendments relating to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018.” The panel decided to change the word “transgender” in the law to “khunsa” (intersex).
- Steven Greer, A human-rights law professor at the University of Bristol who retired last year amid pressure for some Islamic organizations such as Islamic Society that accused him of insensitivity and Islamophobia, accused his former institution of kowtowing to the Islamic Society.
- “A businessman, Musa Usman has prayed a Sharia Court in Kaduna, Kaduna State [Nigeria] to order his divorce-seeking wife, Aisha Umar to pay him N320,000 in exchange for her freedom.”
- “In response to recent reports that some European countries have allowed insects to be added to food, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment in the UAE has confirmed that all food products sold in the country’s markets are subject to strict controls to ensure that they meet the requirements of Islamic law.”
- Pundits have observed that the harsh application of Islamic law in Afghanistan has prompted Saudi columnists to more boldly call on Saudi authorities to effectuate reforms in Saudi Arabia’s legal system.
- Many survivors in Turkey and Syria, in the aftermath of the two earthquakes that hit both countries, have needed to deal with Islamic burial rituals, which do “not allow cremation as the religion places an emphasis on the preservation of the body, which Muslims believe will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement.”
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Calendar:
- Disaster Relief: Harvard Law School’s Turkey-Syria Earthquake Relief Efforts.
- Student work opportunity: Research assistant, Widener Library, Harvard University.
- 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 21, 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:
- Call to Sponsor a Member: for applicants affected by the earthquakes, MESA 2023.
- Visiting Scholar Opportunity: The Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, February 28, 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.
- Webinar: “Contesting Sharia Law and Moral Enforcement in Aceh, Indonesia: A Contextual Approach” by Reza Idra, Stanford University, March 2, 2023.
- Fellowship: Robert M. Cover – Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinical Fellowship, Yale Law School, 2023-2025, March 10, 2023.
- Call for Panels: Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) 11th Biennial Conference, University of Ghana-Legon, March 15, 2023.
- Ottoman Summer School, Istanbul, Bilgi University, 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.
- Webinar: “Public Freedoms in the Islamic State,” with Rached Ghannouchi, Noah Feldman and Rushain Abbasi, Yale Law School, March 21, 2023.
- Conference: “Succession in Islamic Law,” Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, March 30-31, 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.
- Roundtable Discussion: The future of teaching in the Islamicate Digital Humanities, AKU-ISMC, London, May 15-16, 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.