SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law: In "Islam through Objects" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), Anna Bigelow (ed.) (Stanford University) curates a collection of essays on objects in Islam and how these objects, including, for example, prayer beads, rugs, amulets, clothing, shed light on what the author terms "Islamic material culture studies." In "Violence in Early Islam: Religious … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law: In "The Textual Evolution of the Ottoman Şeyhülislams’ Fetvas: A Cross-Corpora Computational Analysis" (Der Islam 98, no. 2 (2021)), Bogac Ergene (The University of Vermont) and Atabey Kaygun (Istanbul Technical University) "use a mix of computational techniques to identify textual shifts in the Ottoman şeyhülislams’ fetvas between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries." In … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
By Christian Mauder This is part one in a series of four posts on legal culture at the late Mamlūk court. Many students of Islamic history are fascinated by the unusual polity that ruled Egypt, Syria, and neighboring regions from about 1250 to 1517 CE. This political entity was dominated by a small elite group … Continue reading Legal Diversity at the Late Mamlūk Court
By Mehdi Berriah This is part one in a series of four posts on the financing of jihād during the Mamlūk period. While the spirit and laws of jihād have often attracted the attention of researchers, this is not the case for its economic aspect, which remains poorly known. It must be kept in mind … Continue reading The Issue of Financing Jihād in Islamic Law: Three Case Studies from the Mamlūk Period
We are delighted to share with you that the Library of Congress and the Program in Islamic Law have initiated a collaborative effort to "identify, select and assess the copyright status of materials focusing on national legal gazettes." Initially set for three years, the collaboration will focus on the legal analysis of Library of Congress' … Continue reading The Library of Congress Announces Collaboration with the Program in Islamic Law!
The Program in Islamic Law and the Library of Congress have announced a historic collaborative project whereby the official gazettes of Muslim countries will be identified and analyzed from a copyright perspective. Editor-in-Chief Professor Intisar Rabb commented that "these sources — combined with careful research and data science tools — will make for unparalleled research … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup
Recently released findings of the US Mosque Survey 2020 revealed that the number of mosques in the United States experienced a steady increase over the years, increasing from 2,106 in 2010 to 2,769 in 2020. Survey findings of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) of France indicated that Anti-Muslim acts and anti-Islamic bias … Continue reading Islam and Data Science Roundup
A recent Pew Research Center study found that "[a]bout eight-in-ten Americans say there is a lot or some discrimination in their society, and two-thirds or more in the UK, Germany and France agree." In "Christians, Muslims and Traditional Worshippers in Nigeria: Estimating the Relative Proportions from Eleven Nationally Representative Social Surveys" (Review of Religious Research, … Continue reading Islam and Data Science Roundup
In "Impact of perceived discrimination on depression and anxiety among Muslim college students: The role of acculturative stress, religious support, and Muslim identity" (American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2021), Petty Tineo (Yale University) and others survey 205 Muslim college students to find that there exists a "statistically significant" relationship between Muslim identity and levels of experienced … Continue reading Islam and Data Science Roundup
By Intisar Rabb This essay is part of the Islamic Law Blog’s Roundtable on Islamic Legal History & Historiography, edited by Intisar Rabb (Editor-in-Chief) and Mariam Sheibani (Lead Blog Editor), and introduced with a list of further readings in a short post, also by Intisar Rabb: “Methods and Meaning in Islamic Law: Introduction." Introduction* We’ve all … Continue reading Islamic Legal Canons as Memes
