Hot Off the (DIGITAL) Presses: JIL Volume Two is Finally Out!: We are pleased to announce the publication of the second volume of the Journal of Islamic Law. This peer-reviewed online Journal—published together with a regular Forum—features new scholarship in Islamic legal studies. Focusing on historical, comparative, and law and society approaches to Islamic law, Journal editors also have a keen interest in featuring data science tools and approaches to scholarship in this field. The Journal features long-form articles, essays, case notes, and other new developments in the field. The more dynamic Forum provides space for timely scholarly engagement and debate: invited roundtables on thematic issues of the day, essays on manuscripts or recent scholarship, and reviews of data science tools for the field.
We invite you to digitally explore the second issue which includes in the main Journal two articles, by Sohaira Z Siddiqui and Tobias Scheunchen, and a case brief by Thomas Francis on recent developments and scholarship in Islamic family law. A set of student notes by Cem Tecimer, Ari Schriber and Limeng Sun comment on primary source materials on the status of the Hagia Sophia museum-turned-mosque in Turkey, questions of pandemics and plague in 19th-century Morocco, and regulation of Uyghurs in China, respectively. The Forum features selected essays from the Islamic Law Blog’s Roundtable on Islamic Law & Legal History, with contributions from Intisar Rabb, Maribel Fierro, Marina Rustow, Ersilia Francesca, Najam Haider, Marion Katz, Haider Hamoudi, Joseph Lowry, Bogac Ergene, Metin Cosgel, and Hiroyuki Yanagihashi. Check out the new issue today!
CONTENT: Courts and Canons Database The Program of Islamic Law is currently developing a suite of data science tools designed to expand access to and facilitate research in the field. Led by Professor Intisar Rabb, one of these tools is the Courts and Canons (CnC) project, which is an interactive, collaborative project that places the Islamic legal tradition in historical, socio-political, and geographic contexts. This tool will allow researchers to examine Islamic legal canons alongside the historical figures who used them and the values behind them, as part of dynamic traditions spanning and sometimes defying genres over many centuries and continents. By connecting legal canons to court cases and scholars, varied interpretive approaches, and myriad sources, the project facilitates insights into how and why each canon emerged and related to others. Omar Abdel-Ghaffar and Jamie Folsom recently presented this project a the Digital Humanities Summer Institute on Tuesday, June 8th. You can watch the video of their presentation here.
CONTEXT: Monthly Lectures on Islamic Legal Genres Through Monthly Lectures on Islamic Legal Genres, convened by Professors Hakki Arslan, Necmettin Kizilkaya, and Intisar Rabb, a group of scholars and students of Islamic law and history have been meeting monthly to explore the form and function of genres popular in Islamic law from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries. The working group hypothesizes that the development of different genres accompanied different functions and diversity of content to match the evolving needs of Islamic law and society. Maribel Fierro (CSIC-Madrid) recently presented “Fatawa Compilations: Exploring a Legal Genre in the Islamic West.” Her presentation followed Samy Ayoub‘s (University of Texas) on “Creativity in Continuity: al-Rasa’il al-Fiqhiyya as a Genre for Legal Change Monthly Lectures on Islamic Legal Genres.” You can watch previous lectures here and read their summaries on our blog. Subscribe to our lists for the latest on this ongoing workshop.
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