ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS
- In the documentary film “What Comes From Sitting in Silence,” director Sophie Schrago “is a fly on the wall” during sessions in a “women’s Islamic-law court” in India, headed by a woman judge.
- “After days of deliberation, [Iran‘s] powerful Assembly of Experts has chosen Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei as the third Supreme Leader,” with Iranian media describing him as a “scholar well-versed in Islamic law and theology.” “The death of the previous leader, Mojtaba’s father, in “February 2026 US–Israeli airstrikes on Tehran has…revived a question that has long shadowed the system since its founding: whether supreme authority rests primarily on religious legitimacy or political power.”
- Nura Hossainzadeh argued that former Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini‘s “vast corpus of writings and statements” demonstrate that “he was often, put simply, a democrat…[who] insisted that the legitimacy of Islamic government rested upon the popular referendum.”
- The Business Standard offered a “closer look at the concept of being an Ayatollah and how Iran has overlapped its political system with the Shia clerical hierarchy.”
- In a recent statement, Dr. Raghib Naeemi of Pakistan‘s Council of Islamic Ideology outlined the “fundamental difference” between “zakat and voluntary charity (sadaqa).”
CASES AND FATWĀS
- The International Criminal Court “issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity for persecuting women and girls.” Meanwhile, “Afghanistan’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice says it has reviewed and handled thousands of complaints related to women’s issues in an effort to ensure their rights under Islamic law.” For more content and context on the recent developments in Afghanistan, consult our Editor-in-Chief Professor Intisar Rabb’s “Resource Roundup: Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Islamic Law.”
- The Supreme Court of India “orally observed that it would be better to defer to Parliament’s wisdom to bring a Uniform Civil Code rather than judicially strike down the Shariat Application Act, 1937 on the ground of discrimination for giving Muslim women a smaller share of family inheritance compared with their male counterparts.”
- “The recent notice taken by the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) regarding proceedings before the Supreme Court of Pakistan on the legal parameters of khula (a woman’s right to seek the dissolution of marriage) is both timely and significant. What is at stake is not merely a technical question of family law, but the lived reality of countless women.”
- “Malaysia does not lack laws addressing issues that affect women’s lives. Domestic violence legislation exists. Islamic family law recognises a father’s obligation to financially support his children after divorce. Yet for many women, the gap between legal protections and lived reality remains.” For more content and context on Islamic law in Malaysia, consult our Editor-in-Chief Professor Intisar Rabb’s “Legislation and Regulation of Islamic Law in Malaysia” and its appended resource roundup.
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
PIL & Harvard Events:
- 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
- Roundtable: Knowledge in the Islamic Court, Program in Islamic Law, Harvard Law School, April 16, 2026
- 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
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: Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars Program, American Society for Legal History, April 1, 2026
- Fellowship: 2026 ARIT Fellowships for Research in Turkey, American Research Institute in Turkey, April 1, 2026
- Language School: Persian Language Summer School, Armenian School of Languages and Cultures, Yerevan, Armenia, May 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