ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- “Five years ago, while [a Canadian] couple were living in Pakistan, a court granted [them] adoption rights under a Sharia law known as kafala. This practice recognizes adoptive parents in most of the world’s 49 Muslim-majority countries through guardianship, which is a largely symbolic Islamic principle that maintains the tie between adopted children and their biological parents. The federal government [of Canada] . . . maintains that because kafala does not sever legal ties between adopted children and their biological parents, as Canadian adoptions do, it is not recognized under Canadian law.”
- “The Iranian Association of Islamic Finance (IAIF) held a pre-session on the 9th Islamic Finance Conference on February 4.”
- “As the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) seeks to introduce a definition of Muslim religious schools so it can better administer them and ensure they comply with requirements, [some MPs] asked several questions about the proposal.”
- “The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) . . . claimed that the Varanasi district court decision allowing Hindu prayers in a cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque was taken in ‘haste.'”
- “Kaduna State [Nigeria] governor, Uba Sani . . . inaugurated Muhammed Danjuma as the new Grand Khadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal for the state.”
- “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sharply criticized what he described as ‘hostility towards Sharia,’ the religious law that is part of the Islamic tradition, equating it with hostility towards Islam.”
- “The Islamic Organisation for Medical Sciences (IOMS) held a workshop [in Kuwait] under the title ‘Employing AI in improving capabilities of doctors, scholars and preachers for public speaking and media confrontation’, with the participation of 70 scholars and preachers.”
CASES AND FATWĀS
- “The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore has issued a fatwa declaring that cultivated meat is generally halal, and Muslims can eat these products as long as they adhere to halal standards.”
- “A court in Pakistan has now jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi for seven years, ruling their 2018 marriage violated the Islamic law.”
- “A group of clerics in Pakistan’s northwestern Upper Kohistan district . . . declared in a decree that women’s campaigning for votes ahead of the upcoming national elections was ‘against the Islamic law.'”
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
*** Fellowship: Program in Islamic Law –Library of Congress Research Fellowship Application, 2024-2025, February 15, 2024 ***
PIL & Harvard Calendar:
- Student work opportunity: Research assistant, Widener Library, Harvard University.Islamic Law Speaker Series: “Creating a new Criminal Law: The Military-Administrative origins of Siyasa” with Mohammed Allehbi, Program in Islamic Law, February 13, 2024.
- Book talk: “Bedouin Bureaucrats: Mobility and Property in the Ottoman Empire” with Nora Barakat, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, February 14, 2024.
- Fellowship: The Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World, Harvard Law School, 2024-2025, February 15, 2024.
- Summer Travel Grants: Harvard Center for African Studies, February 15, 2024.
- Roundtable: Islamic Land Law, Program in Islamic Law, Harvard Law School, February 21, 2024.
- SHARIAsource Lab :: Hackathon: Arabic OCR Community Scribes, Program in Islamic Law, March 2, 2024.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “The Rise of Critical Islam: 10th-13th Century Legal Debate” with Youcef L. Soufi, Program in Islamic Law, March 5, 2024.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “The Transition of Ottoman Land Law: Theory and Practice between 16th-18th Centuries” with Fatma Gul Karagoz, Program in Islamic Law, April 9, 2024.
- Fellowship: Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program, April 15, 2024.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “The Umayyad Empire” with Andrew Marsham, Program in Islamic Law, May 14, 2024.
Global Calendar:
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “Creating a new Criminal Law: The Military-Administrative origins of Siyasa” with Mohammed Allehbi, Program in Islamic Law, February 13, 2024.
- Call for Papers: MESA 2024, February 15, 2024.
- Fellowships and Scholarships: American Center of Research, February 15, 2024.
- Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series: Reimaging Peacemaking: Gender, Diaspora, and Peace Democratization in Yemen, February 19, 2024.
- Webinar: Revisiting the History of Medieval Libya (7th-16th centuries): Looking for Libya in Coptic-Arabic historiographical sources, February 21, 2024.
- Fellowship: Anthony Lester Fellowships, 2024-2025, Bard College, February 28, 2024.
- Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series: Indian Problems, Yemeni Solutions? Legal Exchanges in the Sixteenth Century, March 25, 2024.
- Book award: The Sharmin & Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran & Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University, April 1, 2024.
- Call for Proposals: The 5th Wallace Johnson First Book Mentoring Program, Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, April 1, 2024.
- Webinar: Revisiting the History of Medieval Libya (7th-16th centuries): Partnership for Heritage. Documentation and heritage management for the protection of the Nafousa Mountains, April 17, 2024.
- Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series: Blessed Aristocracies: Charismatic authority, rural elites, and historiography in Medieval Yemen (6th-9th/12th-15th c.), April 22, 2024.
- MESA Scholarship: MESA Global Academy, 2024-2025, May 1, 2024.
- Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series: History of Water Management in Yemen: An Interdisciplinary Study, May 20, 2024.
- Webinar: Revisiting the History of Medieval Libya (7th-16th centuries): Between Ṭarābulus and Aṭrābulus. The journey of the toponym and difficulties in determining its form, May 22, 2024.
- Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series: Mapping the Past, Imagining the Future: Heritage Politics in Ḥūthī Yemen, June 24, 2024.
- Webinar: Revisiting the History of Medieval Libya (7th-16th centuries): Surveying and documentation of the archaeological city of Barca (Al-Marj), June 26, 2024.
- Symposium on Copyright in Islamic Legal Tradition, Istanbul, June 28-29, 2024.
- Call for Papers: De Jure: Jurnal Hukum dan Syar’iah, June 2024.
- Search for Editor: International Journal of Middle East Studies, until an appointment is made.
- 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.
- Call for Papers: Special Section – Lifewriting Annual and Islam.
- Call for Manuscripts: Advances in the Study of Islam, Edinburgh University Press.