ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS "Around 50 Harvard affiliates gathered on the steps of Widener Library on Friday to stand in solidarity with women in Iran, where protests have erupted in recent weeks after Zhina Mahsa Amini died in police custody." "The Texas Supreme Court has sent a divorce case back to a Collin County … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup
ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS Muslim scholars have continued to issue a variety of legal opinions (fatwās) on the permissibility of cryptocurrencies under Islamic law, some deeming them permissible and some declaring them forbidden. For more content and context on Islamic debates over the permissibility of using cryptocurrencies, consult the contributions by our Research Editor … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup
ISLAMIC LAW IN THE NEWS The 1989 fatwā imposed by Iran's late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Salman Rushdie has sparked a more general debate on fatwās in Islamic law and their implementation. Some scholars have drawn attention to the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia in terms of political ambitions in the region as well … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup
SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law: In "Religious Courts" (in the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law), Tanja Herklotz (Humboldt University) explores the concept of religious courts, including sharī'a courts, which she defines as "state or non-state dispute settlement fora that base their decisions on religion-based material and procedural laws and whose judges are typically … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law: In "Experiencing ‘nikah Captivity’ in the West: Gendered Conflicts over Ending Muslim Marriages" (Journal of Muslims in Europe, online, September 16, 2021), Anika Liversage (The Danish Center for Social Science Research), based on a series of interviews with Muslim women, finds that second-generation Muslims in Denmark are more easily able … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
A new Pew Research study found that about 75% of all Muslims in India prefer Islamic dispute settlement mechanisms for inheritance and divorce-related matters.
Ahmadullah, a prominent Muslim cleric from Bangladesh, issued a fatwā stating that using the laughing emoji to mock people is forbidden under Islamic law. Muslim women in Kenya have lobbied the government to ensure that a woman is appointed to the top Kadhi court adjudicating Islamic law matters. A new Pew Research study found that … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup
The Kerala High Court (India) recently overturned a decades-long precedent that had prohibited Muslim women from divorcing their husbands without judicial intervention. In its new decision, the Court noted that judicial intervention was warranted only in faskh cases that involved the intervention of an Islamic judge, thereby recognizing the right of Muslim women to dissolve … Continue reading Islamic Law in the News Roundup
By Dixie Morrison 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: Shamim Ara v. State of U.P. & Anr. is a family law case decided by the Supreme Court of India in 2002. … Continue reading Shamim Ara and the “Judicialization” of Divorce
For the first session of my graduate seminar “Readings in Islamic Law” this fall, I asked students to read two texts: a hadith on divorce initiated by the wife (al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Khulʿ, story of the wife of Thābit b. Qays) and a legal debate between Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī and al-Dāmaghānī in the eleventh century (from … Continue reading Different genres, different approaches
