ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- A proposed law in Israel aims to discourage polygamy, which is already unrecognized and illegal save for exceptional circumstances, which members of the Bedouin community in Israel argued infringes on their culture.
- Indonesia has charged a Muslim cleric with hate speech and blasphemy for remarks he made that allowed women to preach men. “Founded in 1996 and home to roughly 5,000 students, the boarding school has caused a stir with practices like allowing men and women to pray alongside each other, and women to become preachers, which are uncommon in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.” 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 leader of the Islamic State has died, the extremist organization announced on Telegram […] sparking a change in leadership for an organization that has faded in influence and power since it controlled large swaths of Syria and Iraq in the mid-2010s.”
- The Kenyan Parliament is considering the adoption of a law on the central bank, which some observers have argued would create a regulated Islamic financial framework, thereby increasing the confidence of investors.
- Under Taliban‘s interpretation of Islamic law, women have been prohibited from using public facilities without a male guardian accompanying them.
- “The Taliban have burned musical instruments in Afghanistan, claiming music causes moral corruption.'” 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.”
CASES AND FATWĀS
- “Mr Bala received a 24-year jail term after pleading guilty to blasphemy in a landmark case that has stoked growing concerns around the protection of freedom of thought and expression in [Nigeria].”
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Calendar:
- Call for Papers: Middle East Beyond Borders – Fall 2023, August 18, 2023.
- Student work opportunity: Research assistant, Widener Library, Harvard University.
Global Calendar:
- MESA Graduate Student Paper Prize, August 15, 2023.
- Position opening: The Department of Religious Studies, Michigan State University, August 16, 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: International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, August 31, 2023.
- Call for Abstracts: Comparative Law Perspectives on the Future of Constitutional Government in the Global World Order, AALS, September 1, 2023.
- Travel Grant: MESA 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.
- Conference: Celebrating the scholarship and teaching of Prof. Christopher Melchert, Pembroke College, Oxford, September 25, 2023.
- Position opening: Assistant Professor in Southeast Asian history, Brown University, October 2, 2023.
- Fall 2023 Works-in-Progress Workshop: Comparative Constitutional Law in the Global South, Columbia Law School, October 20-21, 2023.
- Conference: MESA’s 57th Annual Meeting, Montréal, Québec, Canada, November 2-5, 2023.
- Prize: Nominations for the Mark Tushnet Prize in Comparative Law, AALS, November 30, 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.
- Position opening: Postdoctoral opportunity in History of Islam/Arabic Studies, Leiden University, February 1, 2024.
- Search for Editor: International Journal of Middle East Studies, until an appointment is made.
- MEM Fellowship for Graduate Students of Color.
- Scholarship: Islamic Scholarship Fund CAMBA Law Scholarship 2023.
- 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.
- 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.
- Position opening: Postdoc at the Center for Social Concerns and the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame, July – September 2023. Deadline: until an appointment is made.