Islamic Law Speaker Series: Youssef Belal (United Nations), “Thinking the World with Islamic Knowledges,” November 11, 2025 @12:30pm

TUE 11 NOV 2025 | 12.30-1.30p US EST | Zoom
Islamic Law Speaker Series :: Youssef Belal (United Nations)
“Thinking the World with Islamic Knowledges”

Youssef Belal (United Nations) will present “Thinking the World with Islamic Knowledges” from his book titled The Life of Shari’a: A Comparative Anthropology of Law (University of California Press, 2025). Is there a way to think about contemporary life with knowledge that is neither modern nor Western? Rather than confining Islam to a “religion” and sharīʿa to its “law,” Belal argues that Islamic shariʿa is a mode of knowledge with its own concepts and scholarly categories through which the world and the self are grasped. The Life of Sharīʿa considers two intertwined lineages: how Islamic scholars have formulated sharīʿa knowledge from the classical period to today and how Westerners have understood the law and its origins. By melding these two traditions, Belal formulates a new genealogy of modern law from the perspective of sharīʿa. Through a new conceptualization of sharīʿa, he offers an argument for its continued relevance to the life of contemporary Muslims.