The Program in Islamic Law (PIL) has curated a list of presentations related to Islamic law and data science from the Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA) 2025 Annual Meeting, to be held November 22–25, 2025 in Washington, DC. Are we missing a session that you’d like to see here? Send us a note.
November 23, 2025 @ 8:30am
III-10: Digital Reimaginings of Middle Eastern Studies I: Crafting Virtual Worlds Brick by Brick
Organizer & Chair: Ali Asgar Alibhai, University of Texas at Dallas
Tyler Kynn, Central Connecticut State University
A Digital Ottoman Empire: Developing Educational Games on the Early Modern Ottoman World
Dallin Evans, Rice University
Digital Animations at the MFAH Islamic Galleries, Potentials Now and Next
Isabella Inskip, University of Edinburgh
Global Learning: The Pedagogical Benefits of Studying History for the Development of a Video Game
Bihter Esener, Northwestern University
Classroom in the Ludic Age: Teaching Islamic Art with Video Games
Anna Shovlin, University of Texas at Dallas
The 3D Reconstruction of the Great Lantern of al-Mu’izz: Integrating Video Game Production Techniques in Art Historical Research and Pedagogy
III-15: The Political Economy of Islamic Taxation: Understanding Medieval States from the Abbasids to the Ghurids and Mamluks
Organizer & Chair: Lorenzo Bondioli, Harvard University
Marie Legendre, University of Edinburgh
The Struggle for Abbasid Taxation
Lorenzo Bondioli, Harvard University
Turning Nature and Labor into Money: The Fatimid State and the Medieval Islamic Commercial Revolution
Arezou Azad, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales
The Warehouse of Bamiyan: Tax Collection and Peasant Resistance in Medieval Khurasan
Yossef Rapoport, Queen Mary, University of London
Harvesting the Olive trees of Beitunia: Collective taxation and Arab Clans in fourteenth-century Palestine
III-24: Madhhabs, Civil Law, Constitutions, and Law Enforcement Between State and Religious Authority
Kamran S. Aghaie, University of Texas at Austin
Creating the Modern Iranian Policeman, 1911-1935
Relli Shechter, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Engineering Progress: Social Rights and State Authority in the 1964 Interim Constitutions of Egypt, Iraq, and Syria
Samir Saad, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
Sanhoury, Nasserism, and the Politics of Enacting a Jordanian Civil Code, 1954-1976
Ibrahim Gemeah, Indiana University Bloomington
Institutionalizing Shariʿa: Islam and the Making of Nasser’s Egypt
Mohamud Mohamed, University of Pennsylvania
Reframing the Master Work: The Enduring Legacy of Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn in the Somali Peninsula
November 23, 2025 @ 11:00am
IV-11: Digital Reimaginings of Middle Eastern Studies II: Constructing the Medieval Mediterranean in the Age of the Great Caliphs
Sponsor: Middle East Medievalists (MEM)
Organizer: Sarah Slingluff, University of Edinburgh
Chair: Michael Ernst, Temple University
Sarah Slingluff, University of Edinburgh
The Córdoba Journey: An Adventure in History and Play in Digital Humanities
Stephennie Mulder, University of Texas at Austin
The White Banner: Critical Heritage, Digital Gaming, and Islamic Archaeology
Fernando Casamayor Molina, Harvard University
New Approaches to Early Islamic Residences: Dwellings and Palaces of Samarra
Huzefa Jawadwala, Aljamea tus Saifiyah
Co-Author: Hussein Taher Hajee
The Portal of Opulence and Tradition: Reimagining Bāb al-Dhahab (The Golden Gate) of the Great Fatimid Eastern Palace at Cairo
Cristina Aldrich, New York University
Digitizing al-Andalus: 3D Technologies in the Study of Madinat al-Zahra’s Artistic Legacy
Ali Asgar Alibhai, University of Texas at Dallas
Co-Author: Seher Karakas
The Muqaddimah: Exploring the Great Mosque of Kairouan – A Digital Pedagogical Tool for Islamic Art and Architecture
November 23, 2025 @ 1:30pm
V-11: Digital Reimaginings of Middle Eastern Studies III: Catalyzing Learning Technologies for Engagement in Islamic Histories
Organizer: Sarah Slingluff, University of Edinburgh
Chair: Michael Ernst, Temple University
Michael Ernst, Temple University
Conflicted Feelings: A Preliminary Look into Affect, Azerbaijani Video Games, and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
Hamida Khatri, University of Texas at Dallas
From Bašar to Waḥš – A Virtual Reality Exploration of Metamorphosis
Lilian Abou-Tabickh, University of Toronto
Visualizing Continuity in Intellectual History Using Interactive Learning Technologies
Fatma Mohamed, Al Akhawayn University
Arabic Interactive Digital Storytelling: Production and Outcomes
Burcak Ozludil, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Co-Authors: Ersin Altin
Storytelling with XR: Reconstructing Lost Histories in Nineteenth-Century Istanbul
V-25: Islamic Law: Classification, Semantics, and Positionality
Chair: Saleem Abu Jaber, Achva Academic College
Matthew Steele, Yale University
A Salafi Reading of School Loyalty? Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Shinqīṭī (d. 1974) on Scripture and Devotion to the Madhhab
Jason Andrus, University of Denver
Judicial Positionality in Islamic Law
Fatima Razvi, University of Texas at Austin
Muslim Divorce in Flux: Judicial Discretion and the Transformation of Talaq in Pakistan
November 24, 2025 @ 11:00am
VIII-08: Learning and Knowledge Transmission in Morocco
Organizer: Rosemary Admiral, University of Texas at Dallas
Chair: Asma Sayeed, University of California, Los Angeles
Andrea Castonguay, Western New England University
In This Knowledge Economy? The Appearance and Locations of Moroccan Juridical Networks in the Medieval Mediterranean
Jocelyn Hendrickson, University of Alberta
Al-Tāzī’s Fifteenth-Century Call to Jihād
Rosemary Admiral, University of Texas at Dallas
The Study of Moroccan Women’s Biography through Muhammad al-Kannuni’s Shahirat al-Maghrib
Ghizlane Bentaouzer, Muhammadiyah League of Scholars
The Place of Religious Law in Moroccan Higher Education
November 24, 2025 @ 1:30pm
IX-13: Moral Epistemes Between Philosophy, Language, and Law
Organizer & Chair: Felicitas M. M. Opwis, Georgetown University
Felicitas M. M. Opwis, Georgetown University
Legal Analogy (qiyas) and the Goodness of God’s Law in the Thought of 4th/11th Century Muslim Scholars
Sara Omar, Georgetown University
Analogical Reasoning (Qiyās) and the Logic of Regulating Sex between Men (Liwāṭ)
Feriel Bouhafa, University of Wurzburg
The Moral Episteme of Qiyās in Islamic Philosophy: The Ethics of the Particulars
November 25, 2025 @ 8:30am
XI-17: State Making in the Ancient and Medieval World
Chair: Aya Mohamed, Independent scholar
Onur Birkan, Mardin Artuklu University
An Islamic Perspective on International Relations: A Meaning-Based Theoretical Approach
November 25, 2025 @ 11:00am
XII-06: The State in Islamic Law and Thought
Chair: Muhammad S. Eissa, Chicago Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought
Mohamed Sayed, Indiana University Bloomington
A Muslim State Between Utopia and Submission: Taḥqīq al-Manāṭ as a Realistic Mechanism for Its Realization
Micah Hughes, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Philology and the Mirror of Orientalism: Republican Turkish Critiques of Late Ottoman Islam
XII-09: Beyond Modern Categories: Rethinking Theory in Medieval Islamic Studies
Organizer: Mohammad Sadegh Ansari, SUNY Geneseo
Chair: Kaveh Hemmat, Benedictine University
Grace Bickers, Columbia University
Testimony and Truth-Making in Early Hanafi Fiqh
Aseel Najib, Dartmouth College
Taxation and Conquest in Early Islamic Law
XII-11: Legal Pluralism, Colonial Rule, and State Policies: Governing Religious Diversity in Arab States
Organizer: Dörthe Engelcke, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
Chair: Mohammad Fadel, University of Toronto
Dörthe Engelcke, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
Inheritance Rights in Pluri-legal Societies: Intersectionality and the Struggle for Legal Autonomy of Christian Communities in Jordan
Ari Schriber, Utrecht University
Justice by ‘Their Own Shari’a:’ Jewish Claims to Islamic Law in Colonial-Era Moroccan Courts
Gianluca Paolo Parolin, Aga Khan University
Dismissing ‘Minorities’? Al-Azhar, Citizenship, and the Struggle for Inclusion
Johannes A.P. Makar, Kluge Center, Library of Congress
What Constitutes a Public? Copts, Maṣlaḥa, and Communal Governance in Khedival Egypt
November 25, 2025 @ 1:30pm
XIII-04: Gendered Contestations: Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia
Chair: Nancy El Gendy, James Madison University
Heba M Khalil, Nebraska Wesleyan University
“The Law isn’t Feminist:” The Struggle over Gender in the Lawyers’ and Judicial Professions in Egypt
Reem Awny Abuzaid, University of Warwick
Policing Women in the Securitised Virtual Sphere: Moral Outrage and Panic in the TikTok Arrests