In "Islamic Studies in Australia’s Higher Education Sector" (The Australian Journal of Islamic Studies 6, no. 2 (2021)), Adis Duderija (Griffith University) and Jessica Mamone (Griffith University) collect any discuss data from 2017 on the state of substantive Islamic studies courses taught at top Australian universities. In "Civilised or Savage: The Effect of Colonialism’s Dichotomus … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
By Limeng Sun 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: The Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, in a case of first impression, held that the enforcement of a talāq … Continue reading Talāq, Sex Equality, and Due Process
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Alabama to execute a Muslim inmate who had filed a legal challenge after prison officials told him he could only have a Christian chaplain present in the execution chamber—but not a Muslim imam. Domineque Ray’s lawyers had argued that the prison’s policy violated the Establishment Clause of the … Continue reading In the News: Prison Chaplains
Nadia Marzouki is the author of Islam: An American Religion, published in 2013. She was an Andrew Carnegie Centennial Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center and a research fellow at HKS’s Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative in 2017. She is currently a tenured research fellow (Chargée de Recherche) at the CNRS (Centre National de … Continue reading Interview :: The Social-Legal Implications of Islamic Law with Nadia Marzouki, Author of Islam: An American Religion
A few weeks ago, Germany's Interior Ministry apologized after serving pork at a conference on Islam in Berlin. Most of the attendees at the conference were apparently Muslim, and under Islamic law, pork is not considered permissible (ḥalāl) to eat. Like other aspects of Islamic law, there are some differences among Islamic legal scholars (and … Continue reading In the News: Ḥalāl Food
By Iman Abdulkadir Mohamed The Massachusetts Court of Appeals in Ravasizadeh v. Niakosari,[1] a case of first impression, held that a Muslim marriage contract is enforceable under neutral principles of contract law without violating the Constitution's separation of Church and States. In Ravasizadeh, the parties married on June 20, 2000 in New York. According to … Continue reading The Massachusetts Court of Appeals in Ravasizadeh v. Niakosari
Last month, the ex-daughter-in-law of former Nigerian president Ibrahim Babangida took to Instagram to share her frustration with how the court was handling her child custody case, accusing the judge of having “changed the sharia law to fit his client” (her politically prominent ex-husband). Child custody, like other aspects of law, varies between countries—even in … Continue reading In the News: Child Custody in Islamic Law
This past year, there have been several celebrities and public figures who have announced that they have converted to Islam. As a personal choice, some people who convert also adopt an Arabic name, since Arabic is considered the sacred language of the Qurʾān and many political and religious leaders throughout Islamic history have also had … Continue reading In the News: Religious Conversions and Name Changes
Last month, the legal and political debate in Europe over Muslim headscarves was reignited after Denmark began implementing a ban on wearing burqas in public, and former UK foreign minister Boris Johnson said that women who wear burqas look like “letter boxes” and “bank robbers.” In the US, the headscarf has been debated by courts … Continue reading In the News: Headscarves
Last week, an English High Court judge ruled in favor of a Muslim woman seeking a divorce from her husband, despite the fact that their marriage was never formally registered in the UK. The couple performed an Islamic nikāh ceremony 20 years ago, which recognized the marriage on religious terms. However, the judge found that … Continue reading In the News: Muslim Marriages in the UK
