Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP

On Islamic Law

• In South Asia, the British Empire, and the Rise of Classical Legal Thought: Toward a Historical Ontology of the Law (Oxford University Press, 2024), Faisal Chaudhry (University of Massachusetts School of Law) “considers the legal history of colonial rule in South Asia from 1757 to the early twentieth century.”
• In “Agreeing to Disagree: Abortion Jurisprudence in Jewish and Islamic Law” (BYU Law Review, forthcoming), Rabea Benhalim (University of Colorado at Boulder) “challenges the prevailing perception that religious people and religious legal traditions are anti-abortion. While this may be true within certain conservative Christian perspectives, this perception is an inaccurate representation of Jewish and Muslim Americans and their respective legal traditions.” For more content and context on debates surrounding the compatibility of abortion with Islamic law, consult our “Resource Roundup: Abortion and Islamic Law.”
• In “Oppression in American, Islamic, and Jewish Private Law” (Colorado Law Review 94, no. 1 (2024)), Rabea Benhalim (University of Colorado at Boulder) argues that “American, Islamic, and Jewish law all limit the enforcement of private law agreements in cases of oppression and exploitation. But each system uses a different justification.”

On Islam and Data Science

• In “The impact of Sharia compliance on attracting investments: empirical evidence from GCC” (International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, September 30, 2024), Omar Ikbal Tawfik (Dhofar University, Oman) and others find “a negative relationship between SC and both foreign and institutional investments. Conversely, there is a positive relationship between SC and both family investment and large individual investor investment.”

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 links to primary sources and archival collections around the world, online.We recently added new resources to this list:

• Manuscripts from the American Philosophical Society contains manuscripts including an Arabic-Ottoman glossary of terms.

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.
• Memorial Service: In Memoriam: Professor Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, October 25, 2024.
• Conference: Islamic Finance Conference (IFC), Harvard University, October 25-26, 2024.
• Seminar: “Travel Writing and the Production of a Global Imagination in Muslim South Asia” by Daniel Majchrowicz, Harvard University, November 6, 2024.
• Call for Submissions: Journal of Islamic Law Special Issue, January 13, 2025.

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.
• Discussion: Comparison and Scalar Reading: Niqula al-Haddad’s Translation of Ignatious Donnelly’s Caesar’s Column, a Tale of the 20th Century, Europe in the Middle East, October 30, 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.