Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law In "The Role and Potential of Blockchain Technology in Islamic Finance" (European Business Law Review 33, no. 2 (2022)), Andrew Dahdal, Jon Druby, and Otabek Ismailov (Qatar University) "argue that blockchain has the ability to mediate and harmonise differing shariacompliance regimes thus opening up a single digital market for Islamic … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup

Weekend Scholarship Roundup

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law: In "Judicial Crisis in Damascus on the Eve of Baybars’s Reform: The Case of the Minor Orphan Girl (651–55/1253–57)" (Islamic Law and Society (March 23, 2022)), Mariam Sheibani (The University of Toronto Scarborough) "reconstructs a late-Ayyubid court case in Damascus that was litigated repeatedly between 651/1253 and 655/1257, five years … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup

State v. Waseem et al. – Waiver of Qiṣāṣ and Taz‘īr in Honor Killing

By Zainab Hashmi This post is part of the Digital Islamic Law Lab (DILL) series, in which a Harvard student analyzes a primary source of Islamic law, previously workshopped in the DIL Lab. Case Summary In September 2019, a Multan Sessions Court (state trial court) issued its decision in State v. Muhammad Waseem et al., a high-profile … Continue reading State v. Waseem et al. – Waiver of Qiṣāṣ and Taz‘īr in Honor Killing

Criminal Law (Amendment): Offences in the Name or Pretext of Honor Act, 2016 Passed by Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) of Pakistan

By Zainab Hashmi This post is part of the Digital Islamic Law Lab (DILL) series, in which a Harvard student analyzes a primary source of Islamic law, previously workshopped in the DIL Lab. In October 2016, the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) passed legislation amending the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 (Act XLV of 1860) and the Code of Criminal Procedure, … Continue reading Criminal Law (Amendment): Offences in the Name or Pretext of Honor Act, 2016 Passed by Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) of Pakistan

The “unpardonable” sin of honor killing: A Fatwā

By Zainab Hashmi This post is part of the Digital Islamic Law Lab (DILL) series, in which a Harvard student analyzes a primary source of Islamic law, previously workshopped in the DIL Lab. Source Summary Fatwā issued by Sunnī Ittehad Council of Pakistan on June 11, 2016.[1] This post comments on an official religious pronouncement (fatwā) issued … Continue reading The “unpardonable” sin of honor killing: A Fatwā

Prisons, Abolition and Islamic Legal Discourse

By Adnan Zulfiqar  This post is the fourth and last in a series of four posts on obligation, jihād, revolution and prisons. Over the past several years, there has been a surge of interest in anti-carceral ideas in the United States arising out of greater public awareness of systemic problems in its criminal system. This … Continue reading Prisons, Abolition and Islamic Legal Discourse

Capital Punishment Case Establishes that Sharia Cannot Invalidate Secular Laws in Malaysia

By Terrence George This post is part of the Digital Islamic Law Lab (DILL) series, in which a Harvard student analyzes a primary source of Islamic law, previously workshopped in the DIL Lab. Summary In 1988, the Supreme Court of Malaysia heard the case of Che Omar bin Che Soh v. Public Prosecutor.1 The case arose as … Continue reading Capital Punishment Case Establishes that Sharia Cannot Invalidate Secular Laws in Malaysia

Commentary :: Iran’s New Islamic Penal Code: Have International Criticisms Been Effective for Children and Juvenile Offenders?

Professor Intisar Rabb and Iran editor Marzieh Tofighi Darian analyze changes made to statutes defining juvenile crimes and punishment under Iran's new Islamic Penal Code, passed in 2013. The Code follows a traditional dichotomy between ḥudūd fixed crimes and qiṣāṣ retaliatory scheme (which are directly incorporated from classical Islamic law interpretations of criminal law into … Continue reading Commentary :: Iran’s New Islamic Penal Code: Have International Criticisms Been Effective for Children and Juvenile Offenders?

The Construction and Failure of Islamic Laws of Evidence in ISIS’s State-Building Project

Guest contributor Mara Revkin outlines the legal infrastructure of ISIS. She argues that the movement's barbarism and apparently wanton acts of terrorism belies a self-contained legal system based on Islamic law – including the Islamic law of evidence. Using interviews with eighty-two Syrians and Iraqis, Revkin reconstructs how evidence is used within ISIS's purported borders. … Continue reading The Construction and Failure of Islamic Laws of Evidence in ISIS’s State-Building Project

CASE COMMENT: Pakistan’s Federal Shariat Court on the Protection of Women Act of 2006: Expansion of Jurisdiction, Expansion of ḥudūd

The Federal Sharia Court (FSC) of Pakistan has used Islamic criminal law (hudud) cases to expand its jurisdiction, in a move that has wide ranging effects for the adjudication of Islamic law in the country. One notable case[1] in which it sought to do so arose in a 2010 challenge to the constitutionality of the … Continue reading CASE COMMENT: Pakistan’s Federal Shariat Court on the Protection of Women Act of 2006: Expansion of Jurisdiction, Expansion of ḥudūd