SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP
On Islamic Law
- In “State-Mediated Islamic Normativity: The Role of the Supreme Council of ‘Ulama in Morocco” (Reciprocal: Interlegality Review), Dr. Yannis Mahil (GISTU University) “examines how Islamic normativity is produced and mediated through state institutions in contemporary Morocco, focusing on the Supreme Council of ʿUlamāʾ (SCU).”
- In “Verse Boundaries and “mise-en-page” in the Translation of the Qurʾanic Text” (Islam in History), Alba Fedeli (Universität Hamburg) concludes “that layout remains integral to the remediation of the Qurʾanic text and that the verse‑final position continues to serve as a key point of visual and interpretive structure.”
- In “Translating the Legal Qurʾan Rebellion, Murder, Theft, and Legal Philosophy in Meccan and Medinan Suras” (Islam in History), Joseph E. Lowry (University of Pennsylvania) “considers problems of translation posed by several legal passages in the Qurʾan: the penal legislation against rebellion in Sūrat al-Māʾida (Q. 5:33) and its phrase fasād fī l-arḍ; passages that use the term walī in the sense of a relative entitled to lawful retaliation for homicide in Sūrat al-Naml (Q. 27:49), al-Isrāʾ (Q. 17:33), and al-Tawba (Q. 9:23); the arrest of Joseph’s brother for theft (Sūrat Yūsuf, Q. 12:76); and the verses that describe apparently lawless behaviour by the unnamed character (identified as al-Ḫiḍr) encountered by Moses in Sūrat al-Kahf (Q. 18).”
On Islam and Data Science
- In “The Limits and Potential of Artificial Intelligence in Studying Hadith Defects (‘Ilal) and Reconciling Conflicting Narrations (Mukhtalif)” (Bulletin of the Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies for Girls in Alexandria), Sumaya Ali Ahmed Laban (Qassim University) concludes that artificial intelligence should be considered “merely as a ‘desk assistant and research secretary; for drafting and organizing, while strictly prohibiting reliance on it for documentation, textual transmission, or scholarly Hadith evaluation (tarjih).”
- In “From Digital Religion to Digital Islam: Finding God in the Society 5.0 through Maqāsīd Sharī’ah” (Al-Ahkam: Jurnal Ilmu Syari’ah dan Hukum), Abdullah Muslich Rizal Maulana (Universitas Darussalam Gontor) and others “discuss the possible points of ‘friction’ and structural impediments that may occur as the intersection of Islamic Digital Ethics and the ever-accelerating, disruptive nature of the new technologies.”
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:
- The Refugee Studies Digital Archive is a “a digital library of writings by and about refugees, particularly Palestinian intellectuals,” containing over 1,700 Arabic titles.
UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Harvard/PIL Events:
- Workshop: Carina Dreyer. “What Makes a Scholastic Discipline?” Middle East Beyond the Borders, November 2, 2026
Global Events:
- Seminar: “Muslim Legal Practitioners in Australia: Identity, Inclusion and the Legal Profession,” Monash University Moot Court, November 12, 2026
- Conference: American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting, Banff, Alberta, Canada, November 12–14, 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
Harvard/PIL Opportunities:
- Call for Papers: Con-IH 2027: Transimperial Histories, November 13, 2026
Global Opportunities:
- Position Opening: Tenure-track/Tenured Professor of the History of the Modern Middle East, Cornell University, November 15, 2026
- Call for Papers: St. Andrews Early Modern Postgraduate Workshop, January 8, 2027