SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP
On Islamic Law
- In “Archival Practices and the Codex 2” (Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā), Konrad Hirschler (University of Hamburg) and Said Aljoumani (University of Hamburg) demonstrate “how a widening understanding of archival materialities and the enlargement of our documentary corpora offer new insights into Mamluk-period cultural and social history, including the vivacity of knowledge cultures beyond major urban centers.”
- In “The Age of Marriage in Pakistan: An Islamic Jurisprudential Perspective from Recent Rulings of Federal Shariat Court and their Impact on Legal Landscape” (Human Rights Review), Syed Muaz Shah (University of London) concludes, “Age is indeed not just a number, but an effective point by which society can function in harmony within the rule of law through its various dealings, particularly on the issue of marriage… [the] Bhoja and Ali Azhar decisions of the FSC have truly helped define the Islamic perspective and impacted the landscape of legal development on child marriage in Pakistan but much more needs to be done to ensure girls are safeguards from the ills of this practice within sanctity of religion and to truly effectuate a meaningful solution for their welfare.”
- John Burden (University of Chicago) offers a review of Mariam Sheibani’s An Islamic Legal Philosophy: Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām and the Ethical Turn in Islamic Law in a recent issue of the Journal of Islamic Ethics. Burden observes that “Sheibani’s study departs from this existing scholarship by interpreting Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām’s work through the analytical lens of modern Western legal philosophy, arguing that it marks the emergence of a distinct discipline in the Islamic tradition.” Burden continues by questioning the conceptual boundaries of “Islamic legal philosophy” as a category — particularly why it privileges ethical/purposive reasoning over other forms of theoretical legal reflection, and why not all qawāʿid literature (which doesn’t always foreground maṣlaḥa) fits neatly within it.
On Islam and Data Science
- In “The Disruption of Islamic Religious Education Curricula in the Artificial Intelligence Era and the Problem of Intolerance Among Modern Multicultural Students” (Jurnal Hasil Penelitian dan Pengabdian Masyarakat), Robiatul Adawiyah (University of Indonesia) and others conclude that, “AI disruption has transformed the PAI [Islamic Religious Education] learning paradigm into a more digital, flexible, and interactive technology-based system. The use of AI in education provides opportunities to strengthen digital literacy, religious moderation, and multicultural learning. On the other hand, AI development also has the potential to increase the spread of intolerance, digital radicalism, and exclusive religious understanding when it is not balanced with character education and ethical supervision. The PAI curriculum requires a humanistic approach, religious moderation, and digital literacy development to create students who are tolerant, inclusive, and adaptive to modern technological developments.”
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:
- Ceride-i Mehâkim (Journal of the Courts) was an Ottoman legal periodical published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which served as a gazette for court decisions, legal reforms, and judicial administration within the Ottoman Empire.
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Events:
- Workshop: Archival Abundances and Silences in Islamic Studies, Princeton University, October 2–3, 2026
- Conference: Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, November 21–24, 2026
- Conference: The Institutional Embedding of Shiʿi Imams: Kinship, Caliphs, Courts and Companions (700-900), University of Leiden, January 13–15, 2027
- Conference: Rupture or Continuity in Sharīʿa: (De)Colonizing Sharīʿa? International Conference, Centre for Islamic Studies (ISAM), Istanbul, Turkey, June 9–11, 2027
Opportunities:
- Award: Student Travel Award, Association for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies, September 1, 2026
- Call for Papers: Legal Research & Analysis, September 29, 2026
- Call for Papers: Trends in Intellectual Property Research, September 30, 2026