Weekend Scholarship Roundup

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SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP

On Islamic Law

  • In “Celebrating Maimonides in Cairo (1935): Jewish historiography, Islamic philosophy and the nahḍa” (Contemporary Levant 2023), Lucia Admiraal (University of Groningen) “focuses on representations of Maimonides as a cultural hero during th[e] anniversary year [of 1935, which marks the 800th anniversary of his birth], taking as its central case the commemorations in Cairo.”
  • In “Between Tyranny and Anarchy: Islam, COVID-19, and Public Policy” (Religions 14, no. 6 (2023)), Mahan Mirza (University of Notre Dame) “adds to efforts already underway which aim to demonstrate that engagement with religious norms, rather than their dismissal, represents the most promising path towards tackling vaccine resistance, especially in communities in which religious authority significantly informs social practice.”
  • In “Justice Breyer and the Establishment Clause: Notes on ‘Appeasement,’ ‘Legal Judgment,’ and ‘Divisiveness’” (First Amendment Law Review (2023)), Richard W. Garnett (Notre Dame Law School) explores the judicial writings of Justice Stephen Breyer as they relate to the United States Constitution’s Establishment Clause, observing that his jurisprudence was one that approached religious controversies on a case-by-case basis.
  • In “Religious Freedom in Religious Education” (Advance (Fall 2022)), John Witte (Emory University School of Law) writes that “[w]hile government has the power to mandate basic education for all children, the Court has held, parents have the right to choose public, private, or homeschool education for their minor children, and government may now facilitate that choice through vouchers and tax breaks.”
  • In “Religion as Disobedience” (Vanderbilt Law Review 96 (2023)), Xiao Wang (University of Virginia Law School) argues that, as it pertains to American constitutional law and practice, “[w]ithout appropriate tools to discern genuine religious practice from opportunistic litigation, free exercise becomes an open invitation to true believers and make-believers alike to break the law.”
  • In “The Anatomy and Constitutionality of Religious Conversion Laws in India” (SSRN, February 18, 2023), Rohan Tigadi discusses the constitutional controversies surrounding the various religious conversion laws passed by many Indian states.

On Islam and Data Science

  • The Muslim Family Law Index (MFL-I) has been launched. It “measures the extent to which Muslim Family Laws (MFLs) comply with specific human/women’s rights and the rule of law and standards. The MFL-I assigns country/year scores ranging from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more reformed the national MFL system; hence greater adherence to human/women’s rights and the rule of law.” A short YouTube video providing a general overview of the project has been posted here.
  • In “Data’s Nature and Its Prevailing Right under Islamic Law” (International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding 10, no. 3 (2023)), Mohammad Mustafa Mohiqi (L’Université Paris-Est Créteil, France) “discusse[s] the nature of data in Islamic law and the laws governing it,” concluding that data constitutes property under Islamic law.

Scholar Updates

  • A team comprising Yüksel Sezgin (Syracuse University) as principal investigator and others has launched the Muslim Family Law Index.

FIELD GUIDE TO ISLAMIC LAW ONLINE: RECENT SOURCES

The Field Guide to Islamic Law Online is an ever-growing collection of links to hundreds of links to primary sources and archival collections around the world, online.We recently added new resources to this list:

  • The Muslim Family Law Index (MFL-I) has been launched. It “measures the extent to which Muslim Family Laws (MFLs) comply with specific human/women’s rights and the rule of law and standards. The MFL-I assigns country/year scores ranging from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more reformed the national MFL system; hence greater adherence to human/women’s rights and the rule of law.”
  • Resources – Islamic Studies, a webpage maintained by UCLA provides a detailed list of various databases and resources relating to Islamic studies.

UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

PIL & Harvard Calendar:

Global Calendar:

  • Internship opportunity: The Executive Office of the President, White House, various deadlines.
  • Position opening: Academic mentor and field researcher in Iraq, Cordoba Peace Institute-Geneva (CPI) & ETH Zurich, rolling basis.
  • Position opening: Academic mentor for researcher in Mogadishu, Cordoba Peace Institute-Geneva (CPI) & ETH Zurich.
  • 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.
  • MESA Undergraduate Education Award, August 1, 2023.
  • MESA Graduate Student Paper Prize, August 15, 2023.
  • 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: Legislation & Law of the Political Process, AALS, September 5, 2023.
  • Call for Papers: Special Issue of Religions: “A Critique of the Modern Discourse of Maqāṣid,” September 15, 2023.
  • Call for Papers: Islamic Law & Constitutionalism, AALS Annual Meeting, 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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