ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- “Islamic preacher Dr Zakir Naik, originally from Mumbai, [has found] himself at the centre of raging controversies in Pakistan. He is currently on a month-long tour of Pakistan at the invitation of the government in Islamabad. He is wanted in India on terror-related charges and has found refuge in Malaysia.”
- Palestinian director Laila Abbas recently made a film about Islamic inheritance laws, “which traces two sisters who contend with patriarchal inheritance traditions after the death of their father.”
- “Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim [of Malaysia] has criticised PAS and other proponents of hudud law for only actively advocating its implementation when elections are near, accusing them of misplaced priorities. Speaking to US-based broadcaster Mehdi Hasan in a recent interview, Anwar said the government’s current priorities are policies regarding peace, security and economic development.” 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 group of 39 Iranian parliamentarians has asked the Iranian Supreme National Security Council to revise the country’s defense doctrine, in particular to allow the creation of nuclear weapons . . . . Despite the prohibition under Islamic law on the development and use of nuclear weapons, as repeatedly stated by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, it could still be reconsidered, the official said.”
- In Qatar, “President of the Supreme Judiciary Council (SJC) and President of the Court of Cassation Dr. Hassan bin Lahdan Al Mohannadi emphasized that that law No. (4) of 2023 on the procedures for dividing inheritances has achieved positive results that exceeded expectations with regard to the speed of settling family disputes related to inheritances, noting that no lawsuit has been filed before the competent court since the law came into effect more than a year ago.”
- “The United Nations expressed ‘a great deal of sorrow’ . . . over the continued ban on girls’ secondary school education in Taliban-led Afghanistan as the world body marked the International Day of the Girl Child.” 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.”
CASES AND FATWĀS
- Malaysian “[a]ctress Nur Fazura Shariffuddin and actor Abdul Fattah Mohd Amin have officially divorced, ending their seven-year marriage. Fattah, 34, sealed the divorce with talak satu (first pronouncement) against Fazura, 41, whose full name is Nur Fazura Sharifuddin, before Syarie Judge Abdul Malik Soleh at the Petaling Lower Syariah Court, Subang Bestari on Monday (October 7).”
- “The Kerala High Court [India] recently made a significant ruling, rejecting a petition to quash the case against a man who criticized a Muslim girl for shaking hands with a male minister. The man, who made provocative claims against her for violating Sharia law, found no relief in the court, which declared that personal religious beliefs cannot override the Constitution.”
- The Mufti of Penang (Malaysia), Associate Professor Datuk Mohd Sukki Othman, recently issued a fatwā stating that “[a] Muslim husband is entitled to prevent his wife from participating in team-building activities that include male participants to avoid issues related to slander, ikhtilat, and khalwat.”
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Calendar:
- Workshop: “HLS Beyond Presents: How Current AI Can Help You Do Legal Research,” Harvard Law School, October 17, 2024.
- Memorial Service: In Memoriam: Professor Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, October 25, 2024.
- Conference: Islamic Finance Conference (IFC), Harvard University, October 25-26, 2024.
- Talk: “Faith, Work, and the Law with Jonathan Berry,” Harvard Law School, October 29, 2024.
- The Weatherhead Scholars Program: Visiting Scholars & Postdoctoral Fellows, November 1, 2024.
- Seminar: “Travel Writing and the Production of a Global Imagination in Muslim South Asia” by Daniel Majchrowicz, Harvard University, November 6, 2024.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “Islamic Apocalyptic Jurisprudence: End-Times Law in Sunnī and Shīʿī Discourses” by Ali Rod Khadem, Program in Islamic Law, November 12, 2024.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “On Theocratic Criminal Law: The Rule of Religion and Punishment in Iran,” Bahman Khodadadi, Program in Islamic Law, December 10, 2024.
- Call for Submissions: Journal of Islamic Law Special Issue, January 13, 2025.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “The Making of the Modern Muslim State: Islam and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton University Press, 2024),” Malika Zeghal, Program in Islamic Law, February 11, 2025.
- The Weatherhead Scholars Program: Practitioner Fellows, February 14, 2025.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “The Genealogy of the Death Penalty for Apostasy and Blasphemy in Islam” by Mohsen Kadivar, Program in Islamic Law, March 11, 2025.
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: “A Cultural History of the Arabic Book: Digital Explorations of Writerly Practices and Text Reuse” by Sarah Savant, Program in Islamic Law, April 8, 2025.
Calendar:
- 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).
- Conference: The ‘Arabicate’ World: Arabic in the Making of African, Asian, and Mediterranean Literatures, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, October 18, 2024.
- Call for Papers: 9th Annual Meeting of the Memory Studies Association – Beyond Crises: Resilience and (In)stability, October 20, 2024.
- Talk: “Unsettlements: History of Land Reclamation in British Mandate of Palestine” with Nurfadzilah Yahaya, Stanford University, October 28, 2024.
- Talk: “Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State” by Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, October 29, 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.
- EUME Berliner Seminar: “Conflicting Legacies of the 1858 Ottoman Land Law: A View from Palestine” by Munir Fakher Eldin, November 6, 2024.
- Workshop: Graduate Student & Early Career Workshop, Law & Society Association, May 21, 2025 (Deadline: November 6, 2024).
- Workshop: “Sites of Encounter in the Muslim World: Cairo & Delhi,” UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, November 7, 2024.
- Panel: “The Legacies of Anti-colonial Struggle in Algeria: A Panel Honoring the Life and Activism of Elaine Mokhtefi,” UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, November 8, 2024.
- EUME Berliner Seminar: “Law, Litigation, and Politics of Legitimization: On the Possibilities and Limits of Palestinian Legal Action in Israel” by Suhad Bishara, November 20, 2024.
- Conference: The Islamicate Digital Humanities Network (IDHN) Conference, November 21, 2024 (Deadline for abstract submissions: October 27, 2024).
- Book Roundtable: “Order and Disorder in the Ottoman Empire,” UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, November 22, 2024.
- Fellowship: Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization, 2025-2026, Yale Law School (Deadline: November 30, 2024).
- Conference: Law, colonialism and gender in the Muslim world, December 19-20, 2024.
- Post-Doctoral Fellowships: National University of Singapore, August 2025 – July 2026, December 31, 2024.
- EUME Berliner Seminar: “The Politics of Choice: The 2003 Entry Law to Israel, the Phenomenology of Singlehood and Love Across Borders Among Palestinians” by Towibah Majdub, January 22, 2025.
- 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.
- Position opening: Adjunct for Two Middle East History Courses at Bard College, Spring 2025.