ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- “The World Health Organization has urged Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities to lift restrictions on female doctors, warning that women in Kunar lack access to life-saving healthcare after the devastating earthquake.”
- The UK announced the launch of “Alternative Student Finance (ASF),” “one of the first state-backed student loan schemes in the world that is compliant with Islamic finance principles.”
CASES AND FATWĀS
- The Austrian government announced that it is “preparing legislation to ban the hijab for girls under 14 in all schools.”
- In Malaysia, the “Syariah High Court judge has ruled that both victims [of a recent drowning accident] are Muslim and ordered that their burial be conducted in accordance with Islamic rites.”
- Elsewhere in Malaysia, two police officers “were fined RM10,400 after pleading guilty at the Perlis Syariah High Court to four charges of close proximity (khalwat) at a house in Arau and Kangar last June.”
- US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) “introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025,” which will “impose targeted sanctions against Nigerian officials who enforce sharia and blasphemy laws.”
- Texas Governor Greg Abbott “signed laws that ban Sharia Law and Sharia Compounds in Texas.”
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Events:
- Workshop: Middle East Beyond Borders—Omar Abdel Ghaffar (Harvard University), “Canonizing Assent: Legal Canons in Action in late Medieval Jerusalem,” September 22, 2025 @6:15pm
- Talk: “The Taliban Courts in Afghanistan, Waging War by Law,” Adam Baczko, October 9, 2025 @ 4:30pm
- Workshop: Middle East Beyond Borders—Ozkan Karabulut (Harvard University), “Scripturalization of the Alevi Mystical Poetry,” November 3, 2025 @6:15pm
- Workshop: Middle East Beyond Borders—Prof. Houssem Chachia (University of Tunis), “The Conquest of Tunis (1535): Memory, Defeat, and Celebration Across Cultures,” October 20, 2025 @6:15pm
- Workshop: Middle East Beyond Borders—Cem Turkoz (Harvard University), “Ottoman Natural Philosophy in Seventeenth-Century Context: The Evolution of the Canon,” November 17, 2025 @6:15pm
Other Events:
- Conference: Paris Congress at 125—Comparative Law’s Entanglement with Power from Paris to Today, McGill University, Canada, October 16–18, 2025
- Conference: 5th ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization, University of Pittsburgh, November 5–7, 2025
- Conference: ASLH 2025 Annual Meeting, Detroit, MI, November 13–15, 2025
- Conference: “Islam and Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Opportunities,” North American Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies, November 20, 202
- Conference: International Conference “Poetry and Knowledge,” University of Münster, November 20–22, 2025
- Conference: MESA 2025, Westin Downtown, Washington DC, November 22–25, 2025
- Conference: Faith, Values, and the Rule of Law—An Interdisciplinary Conference, Seton Hall University School of Law, February February 4–5, 2026
- Conference: American Society for Premodern Asia Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, April 24–27, 2026
PIL & Harvard Opportunities:
- Call for Submissions: Journal of Islamic Law, October 15, 2025
Other Opportunities:
- Call for Panels: International Medieval Congress, September 30, 2025
- Position Opening: Research Associate (PhD Position) for the history, economy and law of the early Islamic empire, Universität Hamburg, October 3, 2026
- Call for Papers: American Society for Premodern Asia Annual Meeting, October 31, 2025
- Call for Papers: Faith, Values, and the Rule of Law—An Interdisciplinary Conference, Seton Hall University School of Law, November 1, 2025
- Call for Submissions: Journal of Trends in Intellectual Property Research, Volume 3, Issue 2, December 29, 2025
- Call for Submissions: Journal of Legal Research & Analysis, Volume 3, Issue 2, December 29, 2025