SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP
On Islamic Law
- In “The Roots And Persistence Of Terengganu’s Hardline Approach To Islamic Law” (Eurasia Review), Mohd Faizal Musa (ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute) observes that “the Muslim populace of [Terengganu, Malaysia] remains unwavering in their demand for the full implementation of Islamic law…[so] that any incoming government must acknowledge and conform to the socio-political, Malay-Islamic cultural, and historically unique context of Terengganu,” and argues that “the state’s distinctive historical trajectory has cultivated a conviction among its Muslim community that the shariah can, and ought to, be implemented—given that even under British colonial rule, it was selectively applied.”
- In “Security, Water and Gardens: Constructing Socio-Legal and Theoretical Contexts for the Qur’anic Covenant” (Comparative Islamic Studies), Ulrika Mårtensson (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) “analyses the Qur’anic concept of ‘faith’ in relation to verses about ‘water’ and ‘gardens.’…Two arguments are developed. (1) ‘Faith’ in the Qur’an connotes the ‘security’ of water and food that God promises humans and obligates them to implement among themselves. (2) Research into Biblical Covenant, ancient Arab history and agriculture, and early Islamic law on sharecropping contracts, suggests that the Qur’an could reflect both ancient farming conditions and legal change during the Prophet’s time, which strengthened farm workers’ rights.” [login required]
On Islam and AI/Data Science
- In “Rāzī’s Pen or Ibn Sīnā’s Voice? A Stylometric Investigation of the Risāla fī al-Sikanjabīn” (Journal of Digital Islamicate Research), Zahra Alamdar (Iran University of Medical Sciences) and Hamed Arezaei (Iran University of Medical Sciences Tehran) argue that “the precise attribution of historical texts remains a persistent challenge, especially for prolific Islamic Golden Age figures like Rāzī and Ibn Sīnā. This is exemplified by a concise treatise on Sikanjabīn, a significant compound in Islamic medicine, attributed to both luminaries in extant manuscripts. This study employs computational stylometry, a quantitative method for analyzing writing style, to resolve this authorship debate….This paper concludes Risāla fī al-Sikanjabīn is attributable to Rāzī, offering an empirically grounded resolution to a centuries-old enigma in Islamic medicine, showcasing digital humanities efficacy in complex inquiries.” [login required]
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 a new resource to this list:
- Digital Ottoman Corpora is “a pioneering project aimed at transforming the way we access, analyze, and engage with Ottoman Turkish texts.” Their projects include an “artificial intelligence-based text recognition project [that] incorporates Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) tools for Ottoman Turkish” and “the first Ottoman Turkish crowdsourcing project designed on Zooniverse.” Read more about DOC here.
UPCOMING EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Events:
- Workshop: Middle East Beyond Borders—Giovanni DiRusso, “The Textual Tradition of the Arabic Apocalypse of Peter: Variance and Adaptation in a Christian Arabic Apocalypse,” February 23, 2026 @ 7:15pm
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: Ihsan Yilmaz (Deakin University), “Sharia as Informal Law: Lived Experiences of Young Muslims in Western Societies,” March 10, 2026 @ 12:30pm
- Workshop: Middle East Beyond Borders—Cem Turkoz, “An Edifice of Super-Glosses: The Making of an Ottoman Tradition of Natural Philosophy, 1650–1800,” March 23, 2026 @ 6:15pm
- Islamic Law Speaker Series: Sherman Jackson (University of Southern California), “The Islamic Secular,” April 7, 2026 @ 12:30pm
- Workshop: Arabic TEI (Textual Encoding Initiative), April 2–3, 2026
- Workshop: Middle East Beyond Borders—Amadu Kunateh, “Footnote to Ghazali: Philosophy Without Falsafa in West African Intellectual Archive,” April 6, 2026 @ 6:15pm
- Workshop: Middle East Beyond Borders—Djelemory Diabate, “Closing the Sufi Age: Authority, Finality, and Political Theology in Umar al-Futi Tal’s Kitab Rimah,” April 20, 2026 @ 6:15pm
PIL & Harvard Opportunities:
- Call for Applications: 2026–2027 PIL Research Fellowship, February 13, 2026
Global Events:
- Conference: Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, Amherst, MA, March 19–21, 2026
- Conference: Humanities of AI—Intelligence and Imitation: Mind, Mechanism, Mimesis, Johns Hopkins University, April 24–26, 2026
- Conference: American Society for Premodern Asia Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, April 24–27, 2026
- Conference: Middle East History and Theory Conference (MEHAT), University of Chicago, May 1–2, 2026
- Workshop: The Law and Humanities Workshop for Junior Scholars, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, June 8–9, 2026
- Conference: Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Annual Conference, Chicago, June 17–18, 2026
- Conference: Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, November 21–24, 2026
Global Opportunities:
- Call for Papers: Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, February 17, 2026
- Call for Applications: Kamel Center Senior Postgraduate Fellowship, Yale Law School, February 20, 2026
- Call for Papers: Comparative Law Work-in-Progress Workshop, Princeton University, February 20, 2026
- Call for Proposals: UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies Graduate Student Colloquium: The Visual Culture of Algeria Through Exchange, Circulation, and Global Networks, February 27, 2026
- Call for Applications: Orient-Institut Beirut Residential Postdoctoral Fellowship, March 1, 2026
- Call for Papers: Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars Program, American Society for Legal History, April 1, 2026
- Call for Participation: Digital Medieval Studies Institute, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 13, 2026
- Position Opening: Visiting Assistant Professor of Medieval Middle East, Colby College, July 1, 2026
- Call for Participation: Digital Medieval Studies Institute, International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July 10, 2026