On Tuesday, April 4, 2023 at 12:00-1:00PM US EST via Zoom, Elizabeth Lhost (Dartmouth College) will give a book talk on her recent publication Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia (University of North Carolina Press 2022). In this book, Lhost addresses how histories of Islamic law and legal practice in British-ruled India tend to … Continue reading Islamic Law Speaker Series :: Elizabeth Lhost (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia, Harvard Law School, April 4, 2023 @ 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
Naql-i Rejisṫarḋ khaṭ: Letters, postcards, and telegrams as sources of law
By Elizabeth Lhost In March 1950, Muḥyī-ud-dīn Ṣāḥib sent a request to the dār al-iftāʾ (office for issuing fatwās, judicial opinions) of the Ṣadārat al-ʿĀliya (ecclesiastical department) of the princely state of Hyderabad in which he raised a question about “Zayd’s” use of a registered letter (“regisṫarḋ khaṭ”) to notify his wife of their irrevocable … Continue reading Naql-i Rejisṫarḋ khaṭ: Letters, postcards, and telegrams as sources of law
Farāmīn-i Niẓāmat: Looking at legal layers in a royal decree
By Elizabeth Lhost The first farmān (order) (pictured below) in a volume titled Farāmīn-i Niẓāmat-i dār al-qażāʿ-yi balada, min ibtidāʿ–yi sana-yi 1339 H li-ghāyata-yi sana-yi 1350 H, daftar-i Senṫral Rikārḋ, Ḥukūmat-i Ḥaidarābād (Orders from the office of the qażī of the city, from the start of year 1339 AH to the end of year 1350 … Continue reading Farāmīn-i Niẓāmat: Looking at legal layers in a royal decree
Raftār-i Taraqqī-yi ʿAdālat: Rethinking “progress” in the history of Hyderabad’s Āṣafī Courts
By Elizabeth Lhost Like a good social scientist, I begin with a diagram. Mir Basit Ali Khan’s Urdu-language Tārīkh-i ʿAdālat-i Āṣafī (History of the Asafi Courts) (1937) opens with a grand illustration celebrating judicial progress in the princely state of Hyderabad between 1911, when the last independent ruler, Niẓām Mir Osman Ali Khan (r. 1911–1948) … Continue reading Raftār-i Taraqqī-yi ʿAdālat: Rethinking “progress” in the history of Hyderabad’s Āṣafī Courts
Breaking out of “Anglo-Muslim” hybrids, or the case for studying the princely states
By Elizabeth Lhost Sources matter, especially for the study of history. They determine the stories we tell, the perspectives we portray, the experiences we recover. Yet when it comes to telling the story of Islamic legal change in South Asia under British rule, some sources lend themselves more easily and more willingly to narrative history. … Continue reading Breaking out of “Anglo-Muslim” hybrids, or the case for studying the princely states
Welcome to our March Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Lhost
Elizabeth Lhost is a writer, researcher, and historian of modern South Asia and is currently the South Asia Digital Librarian at the Center for Research Libraries. Her first book, Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2022. In addition to expanding the … Continue reading Welcome to our March Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Lhost
Weekend Scholarship Roundup
SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP On Islamic Law In "Insight: the legal and regulatory framework governing Islamic finance and markets in Malaysia" (Lexology, October 19, 2022) Murni Zuyati Zulkifli Aziz and Rodney Gerard D'Cruz (Adnan Sundra & Low) predict that "[w]ith the government's determination to focus on its Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 to promote Malaysia as an Islamic … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup
Weekend Scholarship Roundup
Shamshad Pasarlay discusses the Afghan Shīʿī communities’ position on the idea of constitutionalism and their vision for a modern constitutional state in "Shīʿī Constitutionalism in Afghanistan: A Tale of Two Draft Constitutions", Islamic Law & Law of the Muslim World (originally published in the Australian Journal of Asian Law). Drawing on two draft constitutions that … Continue reading Weekend Scholarship Roundup