In September, we look back at some of our most read essays published in the past year as well as the roundtables we convened in the past that attracted a lot of interest. Each week, we focus on essays and posts that touch on a similar topic relating to Islamic law. This week, we take a look at the various roundtables we featured on our Blog. Our roundtables so far have included the following, in chronological order:
- In “Roundtable on Islamic Family Law in the UK: Akhter v. Khan (July 2018),” our contributors – six scholars and practitioners of Islamic family law and related subjects – focused on a high-profile case of Islamic divorce in the UK, Akhter v. Khan, issued by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales.
- In “Roundtable :: Tunisian Inheritance Law Reform,” our focus was the (then) Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi’s 2017 proposal to amend inheritance laws. We then noted: “The proposed amendment, if passed by parliament, will allow Tunisians choice: equal shares of inheritance between male and female heirs would become the default rule, from which those wishing to follow traditional Islamic legal rulings could opt out.” Controversies regarding inheritance law reform have continued in Tunisia since then.
- In “:: Muwaṭṭaʾ Roundtable :: Introduction,” our contributors focused on the publication of al-Muwaṭṭaʾ – Recension of Yahya b. Yahya al-Laythī (d. 234/848) by Mālik b. Anas, distributed through Harvard University Press. The translation is based on the Royal Moroccan Edition of the Muwaṭṭaʾ (Casablanca: Maṭbaʿat al-najāḥ al-jadīda, 2013/1434), and was commissioned by the Moroccan Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs. A team of Moroccan translators, under the supervision of Mohammad Fadel and Connell Monette, editors, working over the course of several years, prepared the translation. The Roundtable concluded with a live-streamed symposium, videos of which can be found here (Part I) and here (Part II).
- In “:: Pandemic Roundtable :: Introduction,” we convened a group of scholars that focused on pandemics in Islamic history and thought. Plagues, epidemics, their geography-bending quality, as well as their treatment in Islamic law, among others, formed part of the discussion.
- In “::Roundtable:: Islamic Legal History & Historiography,” we took stock of the myriad changes developments in approaches to the study of Islamic law and legal history. The Roundtable brought together leading and emerging scholars of Islamic law and history to weigh in on diverse approaches to questions of method and meaning in Islamic law and legal history. The Roundtable concluded with a webinar, a recording of which is available here.
- In our “Monthly Legal Lectures on Islamic Legal Genres” series, we focused on the many and varied genres in Islamic history that relate to Islamic law. The series was hosted in cooperation with WMU Münster. Webinar videos are available here.
- Most recently, in “::Roundtable:: History of Islamic International Law,” we focused on the question, “What do we know about the history of international law in the Islamic world?” A select group of historians and legal scholars explored this understudied field of history as part of the Cambridge History of International Law series (forthcoming). The Roundtable concluded with a webinar, a record of which is available here.