Islamic law scholarship round-up

In Litigating Subjects: Algerian Women, Local Courts, and the Making of Colonial Law (Stanford University Press), Sarah Ghabrial (Concordia University) “examines the activities of Algeria’s Muslim courts to reveal how Algerian subjects both incorporated and subverted colonial legal authorities and thereby exploited the tensions of the colonial state.” In “Harmonizing Criminal Law with Islamic Ethics,… CONTINUE READING

In “Penchants of the polymaths” (Aeon), Mariam Sabri (Aga Khan University) argues for “the recovery of the penchants of polymathy that once thrived in the Muslim world.” Sabri makes this argument using the examples of four polymaths, concluding that “If al-Biruni, Alhazen, Avicenna and al-Khwarizmi could turn scarcity, captivity, patronage and instability into new ways… CONTINUE READING

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… CONTINUE READING

In Regulative Verses of the Qurʾan (Brill Academic Publishers), Karen Bauer (Institute of Ismaili Studies), Seyed Mohammad Ghari S. Fatemi (AMI and Mofid University), Robert Gleave (University of Exeter), and Devin J. Stewart (Emory University) illustrate how “regulative verses of the Qurʾan offers a comprehensive study of how Islamic law emerged from scriptural interpretation, by… CONTINUE READING

In “Underage Marriage: Legal and Social Practice in Muslim Jurisdictions” (Arab Law Quarterly), Dörthe Engelcke (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law), Dominik Krell (University of Oxford) and Nadjma Yassari (Swiss Institute of Comparative Law) discuss “the social phenomenon of underage and early marriages on its legal framework, on family policies and on… CONTINUE READING

In Islamic Economics and Finance in Action (Brill Academic Publishers), Shinsuke Nagaoka (Kyoto University) “provides an in-depth picture of how Islamic finance, which began as a commercial practice half a century ago, has grown globally through the trials and errors of bankers and scholars, with analyses of various controversies within the financial industry and academia… CONTINUE READING

In “The Moroccan Mellāḥ: Governing Jewish Spaces and the Islamic Secular” (Turkish Journal of Islamic Studies), Rachel M. Scott (Virginia Tech University) “examines the Moroccan institution of the mellāḥ—the walled Jewish quarters established in Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes, and Tetouan from 1438 onward—as a case study for testing Sherman Jackson’s distinction between the sharʿī and non-sharʿī… CONTINUE READING

Mohammad Fadel (University of Toronto) offers a critical review of Sherman A. Jackson’s The Islamic Secular in a recent issue of the Turkish Journal of Islamic Studies. Fadel characterizes Jackson’s central concept as a modality of secularity internal to the Islamic tradition that, unlike its Western counterpart, does not devalue religion but instead sustains Islamically-inflected… CONTINUE READING

In “Female Madrasas and Islamic Agency of Afghan Girls and Women: How Religious Education is Being Used by Afghan Women and Girls under the Taliban Regime” (Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice), Haroun Rahimi (American University of Afghanistan) and Faiza Muhammad Din (Humboldt University Berlin) examine “the potential of female madrasas in Afghanistan… CONTINUE READING

In “Women, Violence, and Law: A Critical Analysis of Women’s Rights in Afghanistan,” (Mapping Futures for Afghanistan, ed. Arif Saba et al, Routledge), Nazifa Haqpal (School of Oriental and African Studies) “critically analyzes the complex interplay of law, socio-cultural norms, and gender power relations in Afghanistan, focusing on the persistent issue of violence against women… CONTINUE READING