2014–2015
Dörthe Engelcke (Germany)
PhD Candidate, University of Oxford
Topic: Family Law Reform Processes in Morocco and Jordan: Legal and Societal Change and Continuity in Authoritarian Monarchies
2013–2014
Fachrizal Halim (Canada / Indonesia)
Fall 2013
PhD, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Canada
Research Topic: The Digital Madhhab: Reformulation of Islamic Legal Authority in the New Media
Shariq Nisar (India)
Director, Research and Operations, Taqwaa Advisory and Shariah Investment Solutions
Research Topic: Application and Accommodation of Sharīʿa Financial Concepts in Secular Jurisdictions
Tahsin Özcan (Turkey)
Professor of Islamic History, Head of Turkish History Branch, Marmara University, Theology Faculty, Islamic History Department
Research Topic: Waqf and Civil Society: Management of Foundations from the Ottomans to the Republic of Turkey
Lu’ayy Minwer Al Rimawi (United Kingdom)
Spring 2014
Director of Studies, Doctoral Programme, London School of Commerce; Co-Director, MA Programme in Islamic Financial & Business Law, BPP University
Research Topic: Comparative Aspects of Prospectus Liability under Islamic General Law in Arab Countries (Sharīʿa), the United Kingdom, and the United States
Ayman Shabana (Qatar / United States)
Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Foreign Services in Qatar, Georgetown University
Research Topic: Paternity Regulations between Islamic Law and Bioethics
Serena Tolino (Italy / Switzerland)
Fall 2013
Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Topic: Eunuchs in Medieval Islamic Law: Discourses on the Gender of Castrated Men
2012–2013
Olgun Akbulut (Turkey)
Assistant Professor and Associate Dean, Kadir Has University
Research Topic: The Harmonization of Islamic Religious Rights with Secular Laws: What Does the Turkish Model Provide?
Guy Burak (Israel)
Fall 2012
Post-doctoral Scholar, Ph.D. New York University
Research Topic: Towards a Connected Legal History: A Comparative Study of the Ottoman, Uzbek, and Mughal Legal Systems
Mohd Na’im Mokhtar (Malaysia)
Spring 2013
Director, Family Support Division, Department of Syariah Judiciary
Topic: Enforcement and Execution of Maintenance Order by the Syariah Court of Malaysia: Issues of Separation of Power and Conflict of Interest
Roy Mottahedeh (United States)
July 2012–June 2013, Affiliate in Research
Gurney Professor of History, Harvard University
Huma Sodher (Pakistan / United Kingdom)
PhD Candidate, Bangor University
Topic: Post-Financial Crisis Legal and Regulatory Trends: Implications on Islamic Banking Laws and Regulations
Ayang Utriza (France / Indonesia)
Spring 2013
PhD Candidate, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France
Research Topic: The Register of the Qāḍī Court of the Sultanate of Banten, 1754–56: Philological, Historical, and Legal Studies on the Archive of Kiyahi Peqih Najamuddin
Maaike Voorhoeve (Netherlands)
Researcher, Law Faculty, University of Amsterdam
Research Topic: The Sharia in the Constitution of Post-Revolutionary Tunisia
Walter Young (Canada)
Spring 2013
PhD, McGill University
Topic: The Dialectical Forge: On the Formative Dynamic of Jadal in Islamic Law
Luqman Zakariyah (Nigeria / United Kingdom)
Lecturer in the Study of Islam and Muslims, Al-Maktoum College (Nigeria); Honorary Teaching Fellow, School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom)
Research Topic: Legal and Moral Questions in Contemporary Islamic Commercial Transactions: Comparative Analyses between Malaysia and the United Kingdom
2011–2012
Ismail Cebeci (Turkey)
Spring 2012
Researcher, Oxford Center for Islamic Studies
Research Topic: Producing New Contract Types: A Viable Solution for Modern Islamic Finance?
Yoram Meital (Israel)
Associate Professor of Middle East Studies, Ben-Gurion University; Chairman, Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy
Research Topic: Tales of Courts and Jails: The Construction of Hegemony and Resistance in Republican Egypt
Qudsia Mirza (United Kingdom)
Spring 2012
Independent Scholar
Research Topic: Interrogating Islamic Equality
Tamir Moustafa (Canada)
Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University School for International Studies
Research Topic: Islamic Law and Women’s Rights
Umar Oseni (Malaysia / Nigeria)
Post-doctoral Scholar and Lecturer, International Islamic University Malaysia
Research Topic: Dispute Resolution in Islamic Banking and Finance: Current Trends and Future Perspectives
Aron Zysow (United States)
Fall 2011
Independent Scholar
Topic: Itjihād: Its Nature and Function
2010–2011
Sanaz Alasti (Iran / United States)
Spring 2011
Post-doctoral Scholar, Golden Gate University School of Law
Research Topic: What Is Wrong with Capital Punishment: Contemporary Practice of the Death Penalty in Islamic Countries and the United States?
Abdurrahman Atcil (Turkey)
Fall 2010
Post-doctoral Scholar, PhD University of Chicago
Research Topic: Sultan, Bureaucracy, and Law in the Early Modem Ottoman Empire 1450–1600
James Baldwin (United Kingdom / United States)
Fall 2011
Post-doctoral Scholar, PhD New York University
Research Topic: Law and Political Struggle in Ottoman Cairo
Kambiz Behi (Iran/United States)
Spring 2011
Ph.D. candidate, Harvard University
Topic: Islamic Constitutionalism
Erol Ozvar (Turkey)
Associate Professor, Marmara University
Topic: Loan Contracts in the Late Sixteenth-Century Bursa
Omri Paz (Israel)
Post-doctoral Scholar, Ph.D. Tel Aviv University
Research Topic: In a “Nanny State” of Mind: 19th-Century Criminal Procedure, Welfare Policy, and Ottoman Modernity
Maliheh Zare (Iran)
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Tehran
Research Topic: Islamic Capital Markets: A Challenge of Fundamental Rules in the Modern Era
2009–2010
Guy Bechor (Israel)
Fall 2009
Lauder School of Government, Strategy and Diplomacy, The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya
Research Topic: The Courtroom Oath as a Legal Battlefield
Marie-Claire Foblets (Belgium)
Fall 2009
Professor of Anthropology, Catholic University of Leuven, Faculty of Law
Research Topic: Cultural Diversity and Legal Practice: Islamic Practices and Civil Law in Europe
Havva Guney-Ruebenacker (Turkey / United States)
September 2009 – June 2011
S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School
Research Topic: Towards Islamic Legal Reform: A Study of Islamic Family Law as a Part of Property, Slavery, and Jihād Law and a Proposal for its Modernization
Iza Hussin (United States)
Assistant Professor of Legal Studies, University of Massachusetts – Amherst
Research Topic: Politics of Islamic Law: Local Elites, Colonial Authority and the Negotiated Muslim State
Hauwa Ibrahim (Italy / Nigeria)
Independent Scholar
Research Topic: Humanizing Sharī’a – A Memoir on the Human Face of a Legal Practice
Eugenia Kermeli (Turkey)
Spring 2010
Lecturer in History, Bilkent University
Research Topic: Custom in Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Society
Gideon Libson (Israel)
Professor, Hebrew University Law School, Jerusalem
Topic: Maimonides’ Halakhic Writing against the Background of Islamic Law and Jurisprudence of the Period
Intisar Rabb (United States)
July 2009 – June 2012, Affiliate in Research
Assistant Professor of Law, Boston College Law School
Research Topics: Comparative Law and Legal History; Law of the Middle East and the Muslim World; The Internal Critique: Change in Contemporary Islamic Criminal Law
Leonard Wood (United States)
PhD Candidate, History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University
Research Topic: The Reception of European Law, Origins of Islamic Legal Revivalism, and Transformations in Islamic Jurisprudence in Egypt, 1876–1960
Jiyoung Yang (South Korea)
Associate Director, Financial Supervisory Service, South Korea
Research Topic: Risk Management in Islamic Finance from the Regulatory Perspective
2008–2009
Ismail Acar (United States)
Fall 2008
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion, Bard College
Research Topic: Stoning in the Islamic Tradition
Muhammad Ali Bahmaei (Iran)
Spring 2009
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran
Research Topic: International Commercial Arbitration, Dispute Settlement of Intellectual Property
Farhad (Cavard) Khosrokhavar (France)
Spring 2009
Sociologist, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris
Research Topic: Islam in Europe; Iranian Society in the Islamic Republic
Asghar Schirazi (Germany / Iran)
Fall 2008
Independent Scholar, Berlin
Research Topic: Ethnic Conflict in the Islamic Republic of Iran
2007–2008
Kilian Bälz (Germany)
Spring 2008
Attorney-at-Law, Frankfurt, Germany
Research Topic: Sharīʿa Risk? How Islamic Finance Has Changed Our Understanding of Islamic Law
Murteza Bedir (Turkey)
Associate Professor of Islamic Jurisprudence, Sakarya University
Research Topic: Ḥanafī Wāqiʿāt Literature of the Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries
Ahmed El Shamsy (United States)
September 2007 – June 2009
PhD Candidate, Department of History, Harvard University
Research Topic: From al-Shāfiʿī to Shāfiʿism: The Formation of Doctrine among Early Shāfiʿīs
Rudolph (Ruud) Peters (Netherlands)
Spring 2008
Professor of Islamic Law, University of Amsterdam
Research Topic: Sharīʿa and Colonial Public Policy: Criminal Law in British Indian and Colonial Nigeria
Himmet Taskomur (United States)
September 2007 – June 2009
PhD Candidate in History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University
Research Topic: Religion, Law and Politics: Ḥanafism in the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Empire
2006–2007
Martin Lau (Germany/United Kingdom)
Reader, SOAS, University of London
Research Topic: Twenty Five Years of Islamic Criminal Laws in Pakistan: An Analysis
Şükrü Özen (Turkey)
Research Fellow, TDV Centre for Islamic Studies, Istanbul
Research Topic: Ijtihād in the Age of Taqlīd: The Ottoman Tobacco Debate During the 17th and 18th Centuries
Michael Winter
Spring 2007
Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University, Department of Middle Eastern and African Studies
Research Topic: The Status and Functions of Qāḍīs in Late Mamlūk and Early Ottoman Damascus
Aron Zysow (United States)
Fall 2006
Independent Scholar
Research Topic: Twelver Shīʿite Legal Theory
2005–2006
Engin Akarli (United States)
Joukowsky Family Distinguished Professor of Modern Middle East History and Professor of History, Brown University
Research Topic: Law in the Marketplace: Istanbul Artisans, 1730-1840
Eric Chaumont (Belgium / France)
Fall 2005
Researcher, CNRS, Aix-en-Provence, France
Research Topic: Shāfiʿī Jurist Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī
Bruce Rutherford (United States)
Spring 2006
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Colgate University
Research Topic: Islamic Constitutionalism in Egypt
Emad al-Din Shahin
Spring 2006
Associate Professor, American University in Cairo
Research Topic: Contemporary Arab Political Thought: A Century of Debates
Aron Zysow (United States)
Fall 2005
Independent Scholar
Research Topic: Twelver Shīʿite Legal Theory
2004–2005
Dorthe Bramsen (Denmark)
Spring 2005
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Copenhagen
Research Topic: Ijtihād or Taqlīd? A Study of the Principles of Interpretation in Saudi Arabian Legal Thought
Nimrod Hurvitz (Israel)
September 2004–June 2006
Associate Professor, Ben Gurion University
Research Topic: The Ḥanbalī School in the 9th and 10th Centuries from a Social and Political Perspective
Samantha Knights (United Kingdom)
Barrister, Gray’s Inn, London
Research Topic: Islam, Religious and Cultural Diversity, and Discrimination in the European Union
Hisako Nakamura (Japan)
Professor of Anthropology, Bunkyo University
Research Topic: Religion, State, and Society in Post-Suharto Indonesia: A Study of Public Discourses on Islamic Law
Mitsuo Nakamura (Japan)
Visiting Scholar at CMES, Housed at ILSP
Professor Emeritus, Chiba University
Research Topic: Civil Society and Islam in Southeast Asia: Post-9/11 and Bali Bombings Perspectives
Sadiq Reza (United States)
Spring 2005
Associate Professor, New York Law School
Research Topic: Islam’s Fourth Amendment
2003–2004
Arif A. Jamal (Canada / United Kingdom)
PhD candidate, University College London, United Kingdom
Research Topic: A New Framework for Accommodating Religiosity and Secularism in Muslim Societies
Kristen Stilt (United States)
PhD candidate, History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University
Topic: Crimes and Punishments in Mamlūk Egypt
Selma Zecevic (United States)
Ph.D. candidate, Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
Research Topic: Women on the Margins of Legal Texts: Gender and Hermeneutics in Late Ottoman Bosnia
2002–2003
Hassan Abbas (Pakistan)
Independent Scholar
Research Topic: Interpretations of Jihād
Nicolas Hardy (France)
Ph.D. candidate, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
Research Topic: Legal Reasoning Used to Create Alternative Financial Instruments in Islamic Banking
Laya Joneydi (Iran)
Associate Professor of Private Law, University of Tehran
Research Topic: A Comparative Study of Commercial Arbitration in Islamic Law and Other Major Contemporary Legal Systems
Mohsen Kadivar (Iran)
Summer 2002
Professor of Philosophy, Tarbiat Modares University
Research Topic: Islamic Theology and Philosophy; Political and Legal Thought in Islam
Jeff Redding (United States)
Independent Scholar
Research Topic: The Islamization of Laws and Legal Systems Process in Pakistan
Yudian Wahyudi (Canadan / Indonesia)
[September 2002 – June 2004]
Post-doctoral Scholar, McGill University, Canada
Research Topic: The Problem of Psychologism in Qur’anic Legal Hermeneutics; Sharīʿa and State in Egypt, Morocco, and Indonesia: Intellectual Responses
2001–2002
Muhammad al-Atawneh (Israel)
Ben Gurion University, Israel
Research Topic: Fatwās and Iftāʾ in Saudi Arabia
Zoila Combalia (Spain)
Fall 2001
Professor of Law, University of Saragossa
Research Topic: Legal Pluralism
Eyyup Sait Kaya (Turkey)
Post-doctoral Fellow, Marmara University
Research Topic: Intra-Madhhabic Reasoning during the Formative Period in Ḥanafī Scholarship
2000–2001
Richard Freeland (United Kingdom)
Fall 2000
Barrister, Legal Journalist
Research Topic: The Treatment of Islamic Law in American Courts
Birgit Krawietz (Germany)
Lecturer, University of Tübingen
Research Topic: Demons (jinn) as Co-Creatures of Human Beings in Islamic Culture
Nejdet Ertug (Turkey)
Assistant Professor, Sakarya University
Research Topic: Istanbul Court Records
1999–2000
Elizabeth Sartain (United Kingdom)
Fall 1999
Associate Professor of Arabic Studies, American University Cairo
Topic: The Role of “Man-Made” Law (’urf) in Islamic Government
Abdullah S. Al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabia)
Legal Advisor, Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Saudi Arabia
Research Topic: Crimes against the Environment in Islamic Jurisprudence
1998–1999
Muhammad A. Sid-Ahmad (Malaysia / Sudan)
Professor, International Islamic University Malaysia
Research Topic: Women’s Testimony in Islamic Law of Evidence: New Perspectives
Abdul Rahim al-Saati (Saudi Arabia)
November 1998–August 1999
Deputy Director, Center for Research in Islamic Economics, King Abdulaziz University
Research Topic: Risk Management in Islamic Financial Investment
Wan Mohd. Nazri Wan Osman (Malaysia)
Spring 1999
Senior Legal Officer, Bank Negara
Research Topic: Identifying Insurance Services Consistent with Principles of Shari’a
1997–1998
Tayeb Ahmed Dajani (Kuwait / Palestine)
Fall 1997
Head, Islamic Banking Department, National Bank of Kuwait
Research Topic: Theoretical and Applied Aspects of Shari’a-Compatible Financial Instruments
Mohammad Yusuf Siddiq (Bangladesh)
Professor, Islamic University, Bangladesh
Research Topic: Commercial Law and Contractual Relations in Muslim Bengal from 1205–1707
Aron Zysow (United States)
Independent Scholar
Research Topic: Problems in the History of Islamic Legal Theory
Gouhar Bilal (Pakistan)
May 1998 – January 1999
Faisal Bank, Ltd.
Research Topic: Islamic Tradable Instruments
1996–1997
Mehmet Akif Aydin (Turkey)
Professor, Marmara University
Research Topic: Codification of Islamic Law in the Ottoman State and its Effects on Other Muslim Countries
Dr. Ezzat Mohammed Aly El-Behiry (Egypt)
Assistant Lecturer, Faculty of Law and Shari`a of Al-Azhar University
Research Topic: A Comparative Study of Islamic Law and the Principles of International Commercial Contracts in Accordance with Lex Mercatoria Rules
Fatimah Binta Iliasu (Nigeria)
Professor, Bayero University in Kano
Research Topic: The Marriage Contract in Islam
Dr. Nik Norzrul Thani bin Nik Hassan Thani (Malaysia)
Assistant Professor of Law, International Islamic University
Research Topic: The Supervision of Islamic Financial Institutions in Malaysia
Raphael Abiem (Sudan)
Spring 1997
Research Topic: Women: Barometers of Human Rights in Islam
1995–1996
Grace Samaha (Lebanon / United States)
Attorney, New York and Lebanon
Research Topic: Islamic and Arab Contract Law
Imran Nyazee (Pakistan
[February–October 1996]
Professor of Law, Faculty of Shari’ah and Law, International Islamic University
Research Topic: The Modern Corporation and Islamic Law
Hanif Al-Qassimi (U.A.E.)
Spring 1996
Associate Professor, United Arab Emirates University
Research Topic: A Comparative Analysis of Islamic Law as Taught at Harvard Law School and at the United Arab Emirates University
1994–1995
Ghulam Saqlain Masoodi (India)
SENIOR LECTURER, UNIVERSITY of JAMMU
Research Topic: Jinayet (Tort) in Islamic and English Laws – Parallels and Distinctive Features