Islamic Law at MESA 2024! (A PIL Guide)

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The Program in Islamic Law (PIL) has curated a list of panels from the Middle East Studies Association‘s (MESA) 2024 Annual Meeting schedule that are related to Islamic law and history, and data science. MESA’s fifty-eighth annual meeting will be held between November 11-15, 2024. The full program is available here. Register here. Is there a session missing that you’d like to see here? Send us a note at [email protected].

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  1. Invisible Intimacies in Everyday Gendered Spheres in Egypt – November 11, 2024 @ 11:30 am:
  • Heba M Khalil, Sexualized Bodies: Lawyers’ Everyday Battles in Egypt’s Courts.

2. Medieval Material Culture – November 11, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Taha Poonawala, The Art of Ostentation: Fatimid Coins as Markers of Authority, Ideology, and Identity;
  • Husain Dungarpurwala, Color Contrast of Legitimacy: White Symbolism in the Fatimid Empire;
  • Elias G. Saba, Text(iles): Dress and Fashion in Mamluk-Era Legal Sources;
  • Umar Shareef, Taqyīd al-Mubāḥ and Tobacco: Between Ottoman Administrative and Legislative Authority;

3. Production of Knowledge – November 11, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Sezer Durak, Islam Encounters Nationalism: Mehmet Akif Ersoy on National Identity.

4. Gulf Practices of Citizenship and Labor – November 11, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Alex Boodrookas, Comrades Estranged: The Struggle for Noncitizen Rights in Postcolonial Kuwait;
  • Lauren Clingan, “In Dubai, It’s Very Difficult:” Neoliberal Foreclosures and Gendered Sacrifices for Work and Family;
  • Mahasin Saleh, Advocating for Family-Friendly Policies: First-Time Fathers’ and Mothers’ Recommendations for Parental Leave in Qatar;
  • Keye Tersmette, Democratic Refusal: Silent Citizenship in Oman;

5. Feminism and Fabulations – November 11, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Hiba Ghanem, Translating Untranslatables: Women’s Rights through the Lens of Political Cartoons in Turkey, Iran, and Egypt.

6. Tradition and Change in Modern Islam – November 11, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Samaneh Oladi, Between Piety and Autonomy: Women’s Quest for Emancipation;
  • Nareman Amin, A Shaykh in Gym Clothes: Abdallah Rushdy, Religious Authority and Gender in the Age of Social Media;
  • Nesya Rubinstein-Shemer, Fatwās for an Unprecedented Minority: Sheikh Rāʾid Badīr and the Fiqh of Medical Transplantation for Muslims Living in Israel;
  • Rezart Beka, Abdulla Bin Bayyah (b. 1935) and Neo-Traditionalism: A Critical Evaluation;
  • Nadir Ansari, “Tradition Must Be Left Out”: Questioning of the Tafsīr Tradition by the Modernist Islamic Reformers and the Response from the Traditional “Islamist Tafsīr” – The Case of al-Bayḍāwī;
  • Wael Abu-Uksa, The Language of Secularism in Arabic: Terminology, Semantics and Anatomy.

7. Justice and Human Rights – November 11, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Mansour Almaswari, Human Rights Violations During Wartime in Yemen: Unveiling the Reality of Abduction, Detention and Forcible Disappearance Between (2018-2023);
  • John Miller, Rival Conceptions of Justice and the Critique of Patriarchy in Iran;
  • Lillian Frost, Temporary Citizens: Precarious Gaza Refugee Rights in the Shadow of Jordan’s Law.

8. Environmental Challenges in the Middle East: A Comparative Analysis of Legislative and Governmental Policies in Iran and Lebanon (1900-Present) – November 11, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Saghar Sadeghian, Evolution of Forest Management: Analyzing the Actions of the First Five Iranian Constitutional Parliaments (1906-1926).

9. Feeling as Knowing: Affect, Intellect, and Embodiment in Islam – November 11, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Sara Omar, Indeterminate Bodies, Desire and Sexing Oneself in Muslim Legal Discourses.

10. Perspectives on Race and Unfreedom – November 11, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Benjamin Berman-Gladstone, “They Were Disobedient Slaves”: The 1943 Rebellion of Enslaved People in Shiḥr and Mukalla;
  • Seong Hyun Kim, The Promise of Slave Trade Revival by the Egyptian Khedivate in East Africa: A Case of the Khedival Ambivalent Stance to Anti-Slavery in the 1870s;
  • Alaa El-Shafei, Convicts and Conscripts: Race and Colonial Carcerality in Egypt and Sudan, 1880-1920;
  • Thomas Kuehn, Slave Traders in the Service of Empire: Ottoman Imperial Governance in Yemen and the Red Sea Slave Trade, 1880-1914.

11. Muslim Pilgrimage: Sacred Spaces, Infrastructural Barriers, and Anti-Patriarchal Discourse – November 11, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Sarah Eskandari, Faith, Fight, Flight: Women and Counter-Patriarchal Discourse through Pilgrimage, 1850-1925;
  • Yahya Nurgat, Between the Sacred and the Mundane: Ottoman Scholars and the Practicalities of the Early Modern Hajj;
  • Karen C. Pinto, Through the Directionality of Pilgrimage and Prayer: Ways of Seeing Mecca, Medina, and Other Sacred Places.

12. (Post)Colonial Violence – November 12, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Moheb Zidan, Capital Punishment in Palestine during the British Mandate;
  • Cyma Farah, Constitutionalism as Counterinsurgency: The Case of Lebanon’s 1926 Constitution.

13. Queer Pasts and Futures – November 12, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Fatima Al-Muntafik, Queerness in Islamic History;
  • Berkant Caglar, Entangling Contentious Publics between Queers and Muslim Feminists in Legal Cases.

14. Islam and Imagination: Interpretation, Experience and Contestation – November 12, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Seyed Amir Asghari, Beyond Jurisprudence: Imagination as a Catalyst in Shia Political Philosophy.

15. Diplomacy through (Mis)Communication: Material and Discursive Perspectives from the Ottoman World, 18th and 19th Centuries – November 13, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Jelena Radovanovic, The Ghost of the Cadastre: Untranslatability in Diplomacy between the Ottoman Empire and Serbia.

16. Property, Proof, and Paper: Contestations of Legal Entitlement in Islamic Law – November 13, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Laura Emunds, Notarial Manuals as a Source for Manumission Practices in Mamluk Egypt;
  • Omar Abdel-Ghaffar, Uncharitable Foundations;
  • Ari Schriber, The Power of the Document: Constituting Proof of Land Ownership in Colonial-Era Morocco.

17. Feminist Consciousness and Social Movements – November 13, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Hajer Ben Hadj Salem, The Pilgrimage to Gender Equality in Tunisia after 2011: The Contentious History of a Founding Ideal.

18. The Graveyard of Law: Interdisciplinary and Transnational Approaches to Palestine – November 13, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Presenters: Dr. Lisa Hajjar; Dr. Aslı Bâli; Dr. Maya Mikdashi; Ms. Noura Erakat.

19. Gender Politics in Tunisia Following the Arab Spring – November 13, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Maro Youssef, Secular Feminist Coalitions during Democratization: Findings from Tunisia, 2011-2021;
  • Hind Ahmed Zaki, Veiled Transgressions: Afterlives of the Hijab Ban and the Paradoxes of State Feminism in Tunisia;
  • Khedija Arfaoui, Women’s Associations in Tunisia Today;
  • Mounira M. Charrad, Top Down, Bottom Up: A Path Analysis of Gender Politics in Tunisia.

20. The Institution of Waqf: New Perspectives – November 13, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Reda Rafei, Dunia Wa Din: Gender Implications Of Waqf Establishment, Benefit, Management, And Pre-Mortem Planning;
  • Madonna Aoun Ghazal, Waqf in Late Ottoman Beirut: Legal Practice and Gender;
  • Dilyara Agisheva, Waqf in Transition and Shifting Legal Structures in Crimea Following the Russian Annexation in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries;
  • Randi C. Deguilhem, Family Waqf as a Patriarchal Tool: An Upper Class Woman’s Endowment for Her Husband’s Nephews in 19th Century Damascus.

21. Political Parties and Democratic Struggles – November 13, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Aline Alencar, Emergence of a Democratic Islamist Movement.

22. New Explorations in Mamlūk History from Cairo to Jerusalem and Mecca: Archival Practices, Regional Perspectives, Autobiographical Sketches, and Legitimizing Biographies – November 14, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Bogdan Smarandache, “We Are with the Sultan”: Revisiting the Termination of the Frankish-Mamluk Truce of 682 AH/1283 AD.

23. Evolving Expressions of Belonging in the UAE – November 14, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Michael Ewers, Migrant Bargaining via Social Networks in the UAE: The Role of Wasta.

24. Legal Pluralism and Women’s Status in Muslim Majority/Minority Contexts – November 14, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Joel Hanisek, A Contemporary Analysis of Fatwas in Europe in Relation to Socio-religious Practice and National Policies;
  • Nazife Kosukoglu, Resisting Impunity: Honor Killings and Ottoman Judicial Decision-Making in the Second Constitutional Period;
  • Afrooz Maghzi, Religion-Based Legal Pluralism under Iranian Law and Its Impact on Women from Religious Minorities.

25. Expressions of the Medieval Self – November 14, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Gamze Akbaş, Contrasting Approaches to Women’s Power in Islamic Political Writing: ʿUmara al-Yamani’s History of Yemen and Nizam al-Mulk’s Book of Government.

26. Practical and Innovative Pedagogies in the Middle East Studies Classroom – November 14, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Presenters: Dr. Sean Foley; Dr. Victoria Hightower; Dr. Claire Panetta; Dr. Shuang Wen; Dr. Levi Thompson; Dr. Marcus Smith.

27. Theorizing from a Crossroads: Ethnographic and Historical Approaches to Jordan – November 14, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Tariq Adely, Crafting Arabic: The Politics and Ethics of Making Language into Data in Amman’s Tech Sector;
  • Alex Jreisat, The Adwani Connection: Affective Geographies of Smuggling Across the Jordan River.

28. Towards a Feminist Artificial Intelligence (AI): Critical Studies on LLMs, Surveillance, Algorithmic Bias, and Social Justice – November 14, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • VJ Um Amel, Surveillance AI, Occupation, and Glitch Resistance in Palestine;
  • Azza El-Masri, A Gendered Approach to AI Translational Datasets: Examining Google Translate and ChatGPT’s Arabic-English Processes;
  • Mai ElSherief, What Is a Feminist Language Model?.

29. Representing the State – November 14, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Nihat Celik, Jurist and Diplomat: The Life and Career of Müftîzâde Ahmed (d.1791);
  • Charles L. Wilkins, Provincial Governors as Judicial Authorities: The Assessment and Collection of Legal Fines in 17th-Century Ottoman Aleppo and Diyarbakir;
  • Marissa Smit-Bose, Between Venice and Rome: Re-assessing Mantuan-Ottoman Diplomacy in the Reign of Bayezid II;
  • Thomas Carlson, Beyond Relevance or Irrelevance: The Social Function of Law and Jurists in Late Medieval Egypt;
  • Geoffrey Levin, The Diplomat from Palestine: The Lost History (and Forgotten Archive) of Fayez Sayegh.

30. Legal Frameworks – November 14, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Abderrahmane Zaatri, Early Ẓāhirī Jurisprudential Exegesis: Notes on “Nukat al-Qurʼān al-dāllah ʻalá al-bayān fī anwāʻ al-ʻulūm wa-al-aḥkām” by Abū al-Ḥasan al-Karajī al-Qaṣṣāb;
  • Grace Bickers, Knowledge and Testimony in Early Hanafi Fiqh;
  • Mina Khalil, Defamed by Multitudes of Tongues: Defamation and the Making of Modern Egypt;
  • Heather Sweetser and Zachary Manning, Haram to Halal: The Brewing of Coffee Consensus in Islamic Law.

31. Dynamics of Islamic Governance and Statehood in Zaydi Yemen: Legal Theory and Political Practice – November 15, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Ebrahim Mansoor, Between Tradition and Transition: Imām Sharaf al-Dīn’s Athmār al-Azhār and the Temporary Shift in 10th/16th Century Zaydi Fiqh;
  • Ekaterina Pukhovaia, Innovating the Zaydi Political Order: The Will of Imam Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1557);
  • Eirik Hovden, Who Can Appoint the Zaydi Imam? Changing the Rules ca. 1400-1550 CE;
  • Kerstin Hünefeld, Zaydi Fiqh and Its Political Dimension: The Forced Conversion of Jewish Orphans as a Symptom of Insurgency against the Qāsimid State?.

32. The Politics and Discourses of Reform: Case Studies from the Middle East in the Arab Uprisings and their Aftermath – November 15, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Mulki Al-Sharmani, The Egyptian Religious Establishment and Post 2011 Reform Initiatives for the Family: What is Being Reformed?.

33. Surveys, Legal Briefs and Citizen Social Science: Producing Knowledge in the MENA – November 15, 2024 @ 11:30 am:

  • Jonas Nabbe, Mapping Methodological Nationalism in Middle Eastern Studies: Toward a Transnational Understanding of the 2011 Arab Uprisings?;
  • Hanna Baumann, Asking About “The Good Life” in Bad Circumstances: Citizen Social Science under Occupation and Violence;
  • Kota Suechika, Electoral Fraud and Sectarian Oligarchy in Lebanon: Evidence from a Survey Experiment;
  • Michael Samuel, The Nakba on Trial: Legalism, Denialism, and Pseudo-Moralism in Palestinian Deportations Cases From the 1950s.

34. Birth, Death and Taxes – November 15, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Nader Sohrabi, Of Petitions, Taxes and Democratization: Constitutionalism and the Public in Iran;
  • Bita Mousavi, Property without Possession: Oil, Equality, and Nationalization in Iran;
  • Navid Zarrinnal, State Formation and Adult Literacy in Iran (1925-1941);
  • Can Gumus-Ispir, Sanitization as a Tool of Outsourcing the “Contingencies?”: Tax-Farming, Cholera, and Food Regulations in the Late Ottoman Istanbul;
  • Bret Windhauser, Inspecting Corpses: Geographies of Health Centers and Officers in British Mandate Iraq.

35. Transmission of Islamic Knowledge: Structures and Networks – November 15, 2024 @ 2:30 pm:

  • Maria Tedesco, Sitting in Doubt: American Muslims’ Redefinition of Authority and Epistemology within Islam;
  • Omer Es, Structures of Rhetorical Delivery in the Qur’an: Formulaic Organization of Ceremonial, Legal, and Political Rhetoric.

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