Weekend Scholarship Roundup

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SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP

On Islamic Law

  • In “Confronting Antisemitism in the Muslim World” (Law & Liberty, January 31, 2025) Jeffrey Bristol reviews Mustafa Akyol‘s The Islamic Moses for Law & Liberty (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2024).
  • In “Understanding Islamic inheritance law” (Borneo Post Online, February 2, 2025), Nurqalby Mohd Reda observes that the “lack of awareness of Islamic inheritance laws is often cited as a primary reason for mismanagement of inheritance among Muslims in this country.”
  • In “The Role of Mudharabah Contracts Towards MSME Capitalization in Samarinda” (Jurnal Penelitian Ilmiah INTAJ 8, no. 2 (2024)), Muh Shadiqul Fajri AF (Universitas Mulawarman) “analyze[s] the role of the mudharabah contract in supporting the capital of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Samarinda, using a case study of the Syariah Quantum Mandiri Madani Savings and Loan Cooperative (KSPP). The mudharabah contract is an Islamic financial instrument that has the potential to assist MSMEs’ capital needs through a profit-sharing scheme, where the capital owner provides funds to the business manager, and profits are shared according to an agreed ratio.”
  • In “The Rule Of Law In Afghanistan: Prospects Under The Taliban Rule” (in The Revival of the Rule of Law Issue (Marek Safijan, ed.)), Amal Sethi (University of Leicester) “examines Afghanistan’s legal and governance structures following the Taliban’s 2021 return to power, analyzing how their interpretation and implementation of Sharia law fundamentally challenges conventional rule-of-law principles.”
  • In “Comparative Intellectual Property & Religion” (IP Theory (2024)), Tabrez Ibrahim (Lewis & Clark Law School) “introduces religion to comparative IP scholarship and explains how faith-based considerations can enhance it. Comparative IP scholars have extensively studied different IP laws in different jurisdictions, but they seemed to suggest an erroneous view that comparative IP and religion are like two parallel lines without intersection. Building on these scholars’ work, this Article discusses religion’s role in fostering a new vehicle for discussion and a new normative lens with the aim of ascertaining the existence and extent of religion in legal systems, serving as part of the comparison methodology between legal systems with potential for influencing the policy debates within U.S. legal systems.”

On Islam and Data Science

On Islam and AI/Data Science

  • In “A Digital Transformation in Waqf Management: Leveraging Microsoft Access for Financial Accountability” (International Journal of Scientific and Management Research 7, no. 11 (2024)), Hidayatul Ihsan (Politeknik Negeri Padang, Indonesia) and others “design a database-based waqf accounting application for Badan Pengelola Wakaf (BPW) Ar-Risalah using Microsoft Access. . . . The financial statements generated include an activity report, financial position report, waqf asset details, and cash flow statement. This application is expected to assist BPW Ar-Risalah in efficiently recording transactions and preparing financial reports.”
  • In “Dynamic Triangulation between Shariah Compliance, ESG Transparency, and Firm Profitability” (International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science 8, no. 12 (2025)), Ahmad Fauze Abdul Hamit (Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Faculty of Business and Management) “compares Shariah-compliant stocks with high-scoring (ESG-Leaders) and low-scoring ESG ratings to add new insights to the literature (ESG-Laggards). Shariah-compliant firms may suggest high ESG risk even when they are Shariah-compliant. This study uses panel regression models to assess how ESG practises affect performance.”

On Islam and Social Science

  • In “What role should religion play in Muslim- and Jewish-majority countries?” (Pew Center, January 28, 2025), Laura Silver (Global Attitudes Research) and others find that “[a]mong Israelis who are Jewish, about a third support making halakha, or Jewish law, the state law for Jews in Israel.”  The authors further find that “[s]upport for making sharia the official law for Muslims is somewhat correlated with religiousness.”

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:

  • Medical Manuscripts is a collection of digitized manuscripts from the Islamicate world on medicine and medical sciences, with close to 2000 individual digitized items.

UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

PIL & Harvard Calendar:

Calendar:

  • Lecture: “Law, Ethics, and the History of the Islamic Marriage Contract” with Marion Holmes Katz, University of California Irvine, February 13, 2025.
  • Writing Workshop: The American Institute for Maghrib Studies Graduate Student Writing Workshop, February 27-28, 2025 (Application deadline: January 3, 2025).
  • Conference: The 2025 Annual Conference of the Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS, Lahore, April 18-20, 2025.
  • Workshop: Annual Comparative Law Work-in-Progress Workshop, May 1-3, 2025 (Call for Papers deadline: February 5, 2024).
  • Call for Papers: 39th Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference (MEHAT), University of Chicago, May 2-3, 2025 (Deadline: January 31, 2025).
  • Call for Papers: “ Islamic and Jewish Law in the Modern Economy,” University of Villanova School of Law, Villanova, Pennsylvania, May 5-6, 2025 (Abstract submission deadline: January 31, 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).
  • LSA 2025 Annual Meeting: Chicago, Illinois from May 22-25, 2025 (Early registration: December 3, 2024; registration: January 3, 2025).
  • 2025 Hurst Summer Institute: Legal History, University of Wisconsin Law School, June 15-27, 2025.
  • Conference: Law, Culture, and Humanities 27th Annual Conference, Georgetown University, June 17-18, 2025 (Call for Papers deadline: January 31, 2025).
  • Conference: The Middle Ages in the Modern World, London Strand Campus, King’s College London, June 24-26, 2025 (Call for Papers deadline: January 13, 2025).
  • Summer Language Intensive Program: Istanbul University Institute for Islamic Studies, July 7 – August 8, 2025.
  • Conference: MESA 2025, Westin Downtown, Washington DC, November 22-25, 2025 (Proposal deadline: February 13, 2025).
  • Position opening: Senior Lecturer in Law, History, and Society, Vanderbilt University, 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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