In January we published a series of essays written by students from the Fall 2024 “Islamic Law Lab” course at Harvard Law School, convened by Professor Intisar Rabb. As part of their assignments, students were tasked with posing ChatGPT a question related to Islamic law and then conducting their own independent research to validate, and where applicable, critically examine, ChatGPT’s responses.
In case you missed the student essays, here they are:
- Coffee as an Intoxicant in Islamic Law (Emma Westhoff)
- What Made the Founders of the Four Major Islamic Madhāhib so Influential? (John Burden)
- Navigating the Prohibition of Ribā in the Modern Islamic World (Robert Shepard)
- How Muslims Have Altered their Religious Practices in the Face of Oppression (Summar Khan)
- Fatwā on Human Milk Banks: The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Emma Westhoff)
- Must a Wife’s Consent be Obtained to Contract a Second Marriage? Sharīʿa in Pakistan (John Burden)
- Can the severity of ḥudūd punishments be adjusted to align with modern liberal values? (Salah-Dean Satouri)
- Revelation, Reason, or Rational Consensus? Divergent Views on Ḥusn wa Qubḥ and Natural Law in Islam (Hussain Awan)