- In the wake of the current war, in a recent statement, the vice president of a Russian-owned bank argued that Russian interest in Islamic finance has risen.
- Top officials from Pakistan recently reiterated the country’s commitment to interest-free banking by 2027.
- An Australian tourist who visited Aceh (Indonesia), recently “accused of an alcohol-fuelled, naked rampage outside a beachside resort,” avoided lashing by paying a criminal fine.
- “The National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) [in Qatar] organised […] an interactive educational programme for imams and preachers of mosques on ‘[t]he values of tolerance between Islamic law and international human rights law.'”
- “Saudi Arabia has removed anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli references from Islamic studies schoolbooks, according to an Israeli textbook watchdog.”
- “The Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (SCCA) recently issued a new and updated set of arbitration rules (SCCA Rules 2023).” “The previous rules provided that the parties’ agreed governing law would be applied by the tribunal “without prejudice to the rules of Sharia” or Islamic jurisprudence. Such a clause is omitted from the SCCA Rules 2023[.]”
- Turkey‘s incumbent President Erdogan won a third term as president – a victory partly enabled as “[h]e reminded his audience that he had delivered on conservative causes, lifting head scarf bans and turning the Hagia Sofia, one of Turkey’s architectural treasures, from a museum into a mosque.” For more content and context on the Turkish decision on Hagia Sophia that restored its status as a mosque, consult our “Recent Case Roundup: On the Turkish Decision on Hagia Sophia.“