ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- “Pakistan has pledged to become fully sharia-compliant in its banking services by December 2027, but still has a long way to go to create a banking sector that provides the services its customers want.”
- “The Islamic police in Nigeria’s northern state of Kano say they have arrested a popular female TikToker for posting ‘indecent and un-Islamic’ content on the social media app.” 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.”
- “A Turkish lawyer who was detained on Monday for insulting Sharia, the religious law that is part of the Islamic tradition, on social media platform X, has been released from police custody on judicial probation, her lawyer announced.”
- “The Islamist Parti Islam Se Malaysia (PAS) has given its full-throated support to a government plan to revive a contentious bill allowing sharia courts to impose harsher penalties – including more severe whipping – which has previously stirred federal debate over secularism and Islam in Malaysia.”
CASES AND FATWĀS
- Reacting to the Federal Court of Malaysia‘s recent decision declaring unconstitutional certain sharī’a-based state laws, the Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah said that “all parties should respect decisions of the Federal Court, and the position of the Federal Constitution as the supreme law of the country.”
- “Days after the state government appointed a third member to its Waqf Tribunal, mutawallis of three mosques . . . challenged the appointment before the Gujarat High Court [India] on the ground that the member is neither qualified nor eligible or competent and his ‘only qualification’ was that he was an ‘active member’ of ruling BJP.”
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Calendar:
- Talk: “Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire” with Faisal Husain, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, February 28, 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:
- Fellowship: Anthony Lester Fellowships, 2024-2025, Bard College, February 28, 2024.
- Award: Julien Mezey Dissertation Award Accepting Submissions, March 15, 2024.
- Conference: The other narratives of early Islam, Goethe-University Frankfurt, March 22-23, 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.
- Call for Panel Proposals: Conference by Commission on Legal Pluralism and Universitas Indonesia, April 1, 2024.
- Call for Proposals: Open Source Submissions Program, 2025 Association of American Law Schools Meeting, April 8, 2024.
- Call for Proposals: Discussion Groups, 2025 Association of American Law Schools Meeting, April 8, 2024.
- Summer Course: “Reading Aljamiado Mansucripts,” Mediterranean Studies Summer Skills Seminar, August 12-15, 2024 via Teams (application deadline: April 15, 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.
- Call for Proposals: Symposium, 2025 Association of American Law Schools Meeting, May 6, 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.
- Call for Papers: The Medieval Academy at 100, The 2025 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, March 20-22, 2025 (deadline: June 3, 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.
- Call for Proposals: Hot Topics Program, 2025 Association of American Law Schools Meeting, October 14, 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.