Weekend Scholarship Roundup

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SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP

On Islamic Law

  • The Law of Riba in Islamic Banking: Conventional and Unconventional Approaches to Interest-Free Financing (Routledge, 2024), edited by Hasan Gürak and Neelambar Hatti (University of Lund, Sweden), argue that “[t]he issue of riba, that is, interest/the ‘excess’ or ‘surplus’ on loans is crucial for both Islamic and non-Islamic countries. Western economic systems use interest to distribute financial resources efficiently for investment and/or consumption, while Islamic economies pursue a completely different strategy for financing loans, which adheres to Islamic laws and prohibits the activities of conventional banking systems with regard to interest.”
  • In Islamic State as a Legal OrderTo Have No Law but Islam, between Shari’a and Globalization (Routledge, 2024), Federico Lorenzo Ramaioli (Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Italian Republic in Doha, Qatar) “analyzes ISIS’ own legal awareness, based on the group’s literary materials, which show a considerable amount of juridical work. Such material, mainly propagandistic in its nature, is essential in understanding which kind of legal order ISIS aimed at establishing.”
  • In “An Overview of Death Penalty Policy in Bangladesh: A Call for Reform in the Context of International Proscriptions” (Russian Law Journal 12, no. 1 (2024)), Mohammad Saiful Islam (International Islamic University Chittagong (IIUC)) “demonstrates that the State’s policymakers heavily rely on the death penalty to reduce crime, even occasionally new offences that convey the death penalty have been added to the law since the country became a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The study’s final goal is to find ways to lessen the death penalty; therefore, it displays numerous models that could work as viable approaches for policymakers to consider.”

On Islam and Data Science

FIELD GUIDE TO ISLAMIC LAW ONLINE: RECENT SOURCES

The Field Guide to Islamic Law Online is an ever-growing collection of links to hundreds of primary sources and archival collections around the world, online. We recently added new resources to this list:

  • Iran-i Bastan is a Farsi periodical that can be accessed online through a webpage maintained by the Digital Library of the Middle East. The online collection comprises 101 issues of the periodical.

ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS

  • “A Taliban government spokesman has said the Afghan authorities are committed to engagement with the international community after a new morality law sparked tense exchanges over women’s rights.” 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.”
  • A set of proposed amendments introduced by the Iraqi government “would allow Iraqis to turn to religious courts on issues of family law, including marriage, which currently are the sole domain of civil courts. That would let clerics rule according to their interpretation of Shariah, or Islamic law, as opposed to national laws. Some clerics interpret Shariah to allow marriage of girls in their early teens — or as young as 9 under the Jaafari school of Islamic law followed by many Shiite religious authorities in Iraq.”
  • “The Iraqi parliament postponed a controversial bill on Tuesday to amend the country’s Personal Status Law after civil society groups urged lawmakers to withdraw and break the quorum.”

CASES AND FATWĀS

  • “Prosecutors called on the International Criminal Court Wednesday to sentence the former head of the Islamic police force in Timbuktu to 22 years in prison, while his lawyers said their client should receive time served.”

UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

PIL & Harvard Calendar:

  • Seminar: “Islam and Citizenship in Indonesia: Nahdlatul Ulama and the Quest for an Inclusive Public Ethics” by Robert Hefner, Harvard University, October 7, 2024.
  • Seminar: “Travel Writing and the Production of a Global Imagination in Muslim South Asia” by Daniel Majchrowicz, Harvard University, November 6, 2024.

Calendar:

  • Call for Proposals: Hot Topics Program, 2025 Association of American Law Schools Meeting, October 14, 2024.
  • Conference: 2024 American Society of Comparative Law Annual Meeting, Texas A&M University School of Law, October 17-19, 2024 (Call for Submissions: October 15, 2024).
  • Fellowship: Thomas C. Grey Fellowship, Stanford Law School, 2025-2026, October 15, 2024.
  • Talk: “Unsettlements: History of Land Reclamation in British Mandate of Palestine” with Nurfadzilah Yahaya, Stanford University, October 28, 2024.
  • Conference: Law, colonialism and gender in the Muslim world, December 19-20, 2024.
  • Conference: Eleventh Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies, Queen Mary University, UK, May 8-10, 2025 (Paper proposals: October 31, 2024; Panel proposals: November 30, 2024).
  • Conference: Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, May 22-25, 2025 (Registration: January 3, 2025).
  • Conference: MESA 2025, Westin Downtown, Washington DC, November 22-25, 2025.
  • 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.

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