NEW :: Islamic Law Blog The Program in Islamic Law is pleased to announce a new and improved Islamic Law Blog . Building on an old SHARIAsource blog, this new blog features roundups of scholarship and recent developments in Islamic law, and it welcomes contributions from scholars and students in the field. The new design makes it easy for both the novice and the adept to navigate content and get all the latest updates on Islamic law: from discussions on key issues of the day, roundtable-style debates on important cases, and reflections on historical and historiographical methods to a series of podcasts, reviews of scholarship “in plain English,” and a global calendar of all known events and opportunities related to Islamic law and history. With easy links to related projects, you can also easily search for sources on the SHARIAsource portal, check out the projects and events at the Program in Islamic Law, and soon read cutting-edge scholarship in the soon-to launch Journal in Islamic law. With thanks to the efforts of our new lead blog editor, Mariam Sheibani, we are especially excited to announce that this Fall will feature guest bloggers Mohammad Fadel, Ahmad Atif Ahmad, Marion Katz, and more!  Image credit: Program in Islamic Law

SHARIAsource Partners at UMD & OpenITI Receive $800k Mellon Grant to Create Arabic OCR Tool The Mellon Foundation recently announced it is awarding SHARIAsource partners at UMD &OpenITI an $800,000 grant to build out “Corpus Builder”—the first Arabic OCR tool for historical texts, and an integral tool for research on Islamic law and history. The team at SHARIAsource provided the platform and other significant support in building the initial infrastructure forCorpusBuilder 1.0 and will play a lead role in creating CorpusBuilder 2.0 together with in collaboration with the OpenITI team. Read more .Image credit: Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI)

SPOTLIGHT: Digital Islamic Law Lab (DILL) The Mellon Foundation recently announced it is awarding SHARIAsource partners at UMD &OpenITI an $800,000 grant to build out “Corpus Builder”—the first Arabic OCR tool for historical texts, and an integral tool for research on Islamic law and history. The team at SHARIAsource provided the platform and other significant support in building the initial infrastructure forCorpusBuilder 1.0 and will play a lead role in creating CorpusBuilder 2.0 together with in collaboration with the OpenITI team. Read more .Image credit: Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI)

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