Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP

On Islamic Law

• In “The Position of Female Instrumentary Witnesses in the Creation of Notarial Deeds from the Perspective of Islamic Law” (Journal of Lifestyle & SDG’s Review 5, no. 3 (2025)), Basri Effendi and others “aim[] to investigate the position of female instrument witnesses in the creation of notarial deeds from the perspective of Islamic law.”

On Islam and Data Science

• In “Ethical challenges for using artificial intelligence in understanding Islamic jurisprudence” (Dialnet, March 1, 2025), Israa Musa Al-Momani “aims to create a holistic picture of the advantages and challenges that ought to be encountered in the integration of AI in doing Islamic legal research together with the ethical problems that the technology entails.”

Scholar Updates

• In a recent interview, “Aun Hasan Ali, associate professor in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Religious Studies whose area of focus is on Islamic intellectual history, particularly pre-modern Twelver Shi’i traditions, sa[id] he believes that modern perceptions of the faith have been colored by the 1979 Iranian Revolution.”

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:

• Sharia Compliant ETF List is a subscription-based compilation of “Sharia Compliant ETFs, including historical performance, dividends, holdings, expense ratios, ESG scores, technical indicators, analyst reports and more.”

UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

PIL & Harvard Calendar:

• Middle East Beyond Borders Graduate Student Workshop: “Law and Sufism in Modern South Asia.” with M. Qasim Zaman (Princeton University), April 1, 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.
• Prize: Undergraduate Thesis Prize, The Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, April 11, 2025.
• Middle East Beyond Borders Graduate Student Workshop: Latifeh Aavani (Harvard University), “The Global Codification Movement and the Development of Legal Reforms in 19th-Century Iran,” April 14, 2025.
• Workshop: Parchment, Paper, Inks, and Gold, The Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program and Harvard Art Museums, May 1, 2025.
• Workshop: Workshop on Libraries, Manuscripts, Readers and Patrons in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Islamicate World, The Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program and Houghton Library, May 5-7, 2025 (Deadline: April 6, 2025).
• Prize: Doctoral Dissertation Prize, The Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, May 16, 2025.
• Fellowship: May-Crane Fellowships, Harvard University 2025 (deadline to be announced).

Calendar:

• Colloquium: Punishing Hurtful Words in the Western Mediterranean: Blasphemy and “National” Religions with Laura Anne Thompson, Boston University, March 28, 2025.
• Postdoctoral Research Assistant: “(De)Colonizing Sharia?” Max-Weber-Kolleg, University of Erfurt (Deadline: March 31, 2025).
• Call for Submissions: Journal of Legal Research & Analysis, volume 3, issue 1, April 15, 2025.
• IISMM Seminar Series: “The Economics of Waqf: From the Imperial to the Personal,” IISMM, France (remote option), April 18, 2025.
• Conference: The 2025 Annual Conference of the Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS, Lahore, April 18-20, 2025.
• Symposium: 12th Annual Graduate Symposium, hosted by the McGill Institute of Islamic Studies Student Council (MIISSC), Montreal, April 24, 2025 (deadline February 17, 2025).
• Lecture: Calligraphy, Meet Street Art, Ubaydallah Ahmad and Ismael Muhammad Nieves, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, April 27, 2025.
• Call for Papers: Symposium on Legal Education in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence, Royal Holloway University University of London, April 30, 2025 (deadline March 15, 2025).
• Grant: MESA Global Academy 2025 – 2026 Application, May 1, 2025.
• Workshop: Annual Comparative Law Work-in-Progress Workshop, May 1-3, 2025 (Call for Papers deadline: February 5, 2025).
• 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).
• IISMM Seminar Series: “From Jerusalem to India: Endowments and Gender Influences,” IISMM, France, May 16, 2025.
• LSA 2025 Annual Meeting: Chicago, Illinois from May 22-25, 2025 (Early registration: December 3, 2024; registration: January 3, 2025).
• Call for Papers: “Towards a Global Ecological-Economic Legal Framework,” ESIL IG, Paris, June 6-7, 2025 (deadline February 28, 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).
• IISMM Seminar Series: “Waqfs, women and circles of power,” IISMM, France (remote option), June 20, 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).
• Workshop: “From Classical ML to AI in Arabic and Islamic Studies,” Hamburg University, July 1-4, 2025 (Deadline: April 30, 2025)
• Summer Language Intensive Program: Istanbul University Institute for Islamic Studies, July 7 – August 8, 2025.
• Summer School: Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World, Leiden University, August 18-29, 2025 (Application deadline: May 5, 2025).
• Faculty Fellow: Faculty Fellow in Near Eastern Studies, New York University, 2025-2026, September 1, 2025 (Deadline: March 24, 2025).
• Call for Papers: ASLH 2025 Annual Meeting, Detroit, MI, November 13-15, 2025 (Deadline: March 25, 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.