- “[T]he U.N. special envoy Roza Otunbayeva reportedly confirmed that ‘anecdotal evidence’ about [Afghan] girls being permitted to attend Islamic schools was mounting, [along with] worried about whether the girls would be able to study modern subjects in the madrassas and that a generation of Afghan girls were falling behind.”
- In response, “[a] Taliban official sa[id that] Afghan girls of all ages are allowed to study in Islamic religious schools that are traditionally boys-only.” 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.”
- “Iranian police [recently] closed a major bookshop in the centre of the capital Tehran for allowing unveiled women to enter the premises without a compulsory headscarf, a newspaper reported.”
- “Hours after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday announced there would be no restrictions on hijab (head scarf) in educational institutions in Karnataka [India], Union minister Giriraj Singh said: ‘This is not merely lifting of the ban on hijab but the establishment of Sharia law in the state.'”
- “On December 16, Saudi Arabia’s highly anticipated Civil Transactions Law came into effect, and expected to have a favourable impact on the business environment.”
- “Perak Islamic Religious Department (JAIPk) director, Harith Fadzilah Abdul Halim, warned that Muslim men [in Malaysia] in the state could still face legal action for the offence of enticing married women under the state’s Syariah criminal law,” after a court invalidated an arguably similar penal code provision as unconstitutional.
- “A member of the Saudi advisory Shoura Council has proposed amending the kingdom’s anti-drug law to allow abolishing flogging as a form of punishment, a Saudi news portal has reported.” 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.”
- “Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad [of Malaysia] […] said that the bill to limit the sale of cigarettes has been passed and he is in no position to make it haram by Islamic law: ‘I am not a mufti to make cigarettes haram.'”