Islamic Law in the News Roundup

ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS

  • Redha Rajab, his son Mohamed Rajab, and researcher Jalal al-Qassab, members of the progressive Al-Tajdeed Society in Bahrain, are “accused of violating articles 309 and 310 of the Bahraini penal code, says Bahrain’s cybercrime prosecutor. In the code, expressions that mock Bahrain’s ‘recognized religious texts’ are illegal.”
  • ” [T]wo prominent Saudi clerics recently clashed publicly on whether apostasy was punishable with death under Islamic law.” 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.”
  • “The Committee of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Municipalities, Security Affairs and Public Utilities of the Sharjah Consultative Council (SCC) [United Arab Emirates] met with His Excellency Talib Al-Marri, Director General of the Department of Awqaf, and reviewed various endowment projects and advanced services provided by the department within the framework of its various policies.”
  • Observers have reported that “[w]omen across Iran are refusing to wear headscarves, in open defiance of the regime.”
  • Taliban‘s Health Ministry announced a polio vaccine campaign throughout the country. “Some health experts said the role of the Taliban, whose stated goal is to impose their strict interpretation of Islamic law, could help encourage acceptance of vaccination in conservative areas around the region.”
  • “The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution […] calling for independent recommendations on how a united international community should address the enormous challenges confronting Afghanistan — above all the Taliban’s drastic curtailment of education and work for women and girls, but also terrorism and the country’s dire humanitarian and economic situation.” 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 Supreme Court [of India] made absolute the interim stay on the order of the Uttarakhand High Court banning religious outfits/bodies and statutory panchayats/local panchayats/group of people in the state from issuing ‘fatwas’ or similar diktats.
  • Disillusioned with efforts to democratize and liberalize aspects of Iranian politics and society while working within the confines of the theocratic state, today’s protesters are demanding substantial political and social change that is markedly secular.”

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.
  • Talk: “Desire, the Poetics of Divorce, and the Laws of Remarriage in Iraqi Kurdistan” by Andrew Bush, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, March 29, 2023.
  • Q&A with Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, followed by Community Iftar, March 30, 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.
  • Book talk: Roy Mottahedeh on “In the Shadow of the Prophet: Essays in Islamic History,” Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program & Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, April 11, 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.
  • Summer Program: Comparative Law, AALS, May 15-June 16, 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.
  • Colloquium: Samia Khatun, “Nur, Darshan & Enlightenment: Three Approaches to Connecting Texts and Textiles in 18th century Bengal,” April 3, 2023.
  • Colloquium: Sohini Sarah Pillai, “A Bhakti Mahabharata for Aurangzeb? Sabalsingh Chauhan’s Bhasha Retelling of the Epic,” April 4, 2023.
  • Colloquium: Kashshaf Ghani, “Seeking Allah and Krishna: Sufism and Religious Interactions from South Asia,” April 5, 2023.
  • Colloquium: SherAli Tareen, “Contests over the Boundaries of Hindu-Muslim Friendship,” April 6, 2023.
  • Colloquium: Jyoti Gulati Balachandran, “Socio-Political Dimensions of Spiritual Practice in Gujarat: Notes from Two 15th century Sufi silsilahs,” April 7, 2023.
  • Colloquium: Shankar Ayillath Nair, “Rāma and Sītā as Adam and Eve: The Rāmāyaṇa through the Prism of the Persian Romance,” April 12, 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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