Islamic Law in the News Roundup

ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS

  • ” [T]he Foreign Ministers of Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States and the High Representative of the European Union” have signed a joint statement “calling attention to the situation in Afghanistan, which, over the past year and a half, has seen one of the steepest declines globally in the respect for the human rights of women and girls.” The statement noted “the December 2022 statement from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that the decision to prevent women and girls from accessing education runs contrary to Islamic law.”
  • Afghan broadcaster Tolo News on Wednesday aired an all-female panel in its studio with an audience of women to mark International Women’s Day, a rare broadcast since the Taliban took over and many female journalists left the profession or started working off-air.”
  • Commenting on the situation of women’s rights in Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates U.N. Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh said: “These decisions have nothing to do with Islam or Afghan culture and risk further entrenching the country’s international isolation.”
  • “A prominent group of Afghan and Iranian women [have backed] a campaign calling for gender apartheid to be recogni[z]ed as a crime under international 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.”
  • “The Special Gender-Based Violence Court (Central) [in Karachi, Pakistan] sentenced a woman to 14-year imprisonment on charges of an acid attack on her ex-husband who refused to remarry her after their divorce.”
  • Csaba Kőrösi, President of the 77th session of the General Assembly,” gave a speech at “the event ‘Women in Islam: Understanding the Rights and Identity of Women in the Islamic World,'” where he noted: “While a number of scholars keep pointing out that the Islamic law in certain situations gives preference to the protection of the interests of women and children, women in Muslim communities are often perceived as having an unequal status to men.”
  • The International Conference on Islam and Climate Emergency convened by the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) in partnership with the Faculty of Sharia at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University.
  • Saudi Arabia’s Personal Status Law (PSL), passed one year ago today on 8 March 2022 and touted as a major reform by the authorities, perpetuates the male guardianship system and codifies discrimination against women in most aspects of family life, Amnesty International said [on] International Women’s Day.”
  • “Pas[t] president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang gave his weekly sermon at Masjid Rusila in Marang, Terengganu, today despite a ban on politicians delivering religious lectures in mosques and suraus, a Malay daily reported.”
  • “In Jersey City [New Jersey, United States], public schools have closed in observance of Eid ul-Fitr for the last seven years.”

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.
  • Islamic Law Speaker Series :: Haroun Rahimi (The American University of Afghanistan), “Taliban and Modernity,” Harvard Law School, March 21, 2023.
  • Islam in Africa Initiative: Abdulatif Finch, Swartz Hall, Garvin Room, Harvard University, March 24, 2023.
  • Islam in Africa Initiative: Cheikh Anta Mbacke Babou, Swartz Hall, Garvin Room, Harvard University, 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.
  • Islam in Africa Initiative: Caitlyn Bolton, Swartz Hall, Garvin Room, Harvard University, April 7, 2023.
  • Prize: The Class of 1955/Robert T. Coolidge Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Medieval Studies, April 7, 2023.
  • Prize: Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University, April 14, 2023.
  • Islam in Africa Initiative: Ayodeji Ogunnaike, Swartz Hall, Garvin Room, Harvard University, April 14, 2023.
  • Islam in Africa Initiative: Zekeria Salem, Swartz Hall, Garvin Room, Harvard University, April 21, 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.
  • Internship opportunity: The Executive Office of the President, White House, various deadlines.
  • 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.
  • Position opening: Policy Specialist, UN Women (NY), 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.
  • The Laura Bassi Scholarship, March 31, 2023.
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship: Columbia University’s Sakıp Sabancı Center for Turkish Studies, 2023-2024, April 3, 2023.
  • Prize Nomination: Biennial prize for best book on the medieval Middle East (ca. 500-1500 CE). The Board of Directors of Middle East Medievalists, April 15, 2023.
  • Conference: Policing Issues in the 21st Century, AALS, April 28, 2023.
  • Global Academy Award, 2023-2024: The MESA Global Academy, May 1, 2023.
  • Conference: Seventh Conference for Junior Researchers, The Law and Society Association at Stanford Law School (LSAS), May 5, 2023.
  • Call for Papers: Cambridge International Law Journal Volume 12(2), May 12, 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.
  • Wallace Johnson First Book Program, July 14, 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.

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