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On Tuesday, December 10, 2024, at 12:30-1:30PM US EST, Dr. Bahman Khodadadi (Harvard Law School) will present On Theocratic Criminal Law: The Rule of Religion and Punishment in Iran (Oxford University Press, 2024). This talk explores the roots and structures of the criminal law system of the world’s most prominent constitutional theocracy, the Shīʿī theocracy. While discussing the processes of de-westernization which occurred in the wake of the Islamic Revolution, this work examines how the Islamic conception of civil order and polity has been established within the legal and theological framework of the Iranian Constitution. The presentation offers a ‘rational reconstruction’ of the theocratic criminal law and offers a critical analysis of the way criminal law functions as the centerpiece of this mode of theocratic domination. It illuminates how this revelation-based, punitive ideology functions, how the current Islamic Penal Code mirrors prevailing Shīʿī jurisprudence. It also explores the jurisprudential principles and dynamic power of Shīʿī Islam not only as a driving force behind political and social change but as a force that has been capable of forging a whole theocratic legal system. Registration is required. 

On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, at 12:30-1:30PM US EST, Professor Ali Rod Khadem (Suffolk University) will present “Islamic Apocalyptic Jurisprudence: End-Times Law in Sunnī and Shīʿī Discourses” (Islamic Law and Society 31 (3), 2024). This talk explores theories of the final legal system that will govern humanity in the End Times, as envisioned in the apocalyptic discourses of several Sunnī and Shīʿī case studies. Key themes include the sources of law, the role of jurists, conflicts between Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and international legal systems, changes to classical Islamic legal theory, and the introduction of new laws and policies in the apocalyptic era. The presentation will highlight how the lens of apocalypticism enables movements and thinkers to advocate for radical changes to the foundations and particulars of Islamic law, while still claiming to operate within the boundaries of Islamic orthodoxy. Registration is required. 

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024, at 12:30-1:30PM US EST via Zoom, Professor Recep Senturk (Hamad Bin Khalifa University) will present Ādamiyyah: I am Therefore I have Rights (Usul Academy Press, 2025). This book explores the concept of Ādamiyya and Huqūq al-Ādamiyyīn in Islamic law and its implications in practice from the time of Prophet Muhammad, His Predecessors, the Umayyad and Abbasid periods, Andalusia and the Islamic rule in India. Special attention is paid to how the concept of Ādamiyya was used in relation to non-Ahl al-Kitāb people such as Buddhists, Hindus, and Zoroastrians under Islamic rule. The book argues that the universalistic view of Islamic law based on the concept of Ādamiyya went into eclipse with the rise of nation states in the Muslim and it needs to be revived again. Registration is required.

On Tuesday, May 14, 2024 at 12:30-1:30PM US EST via Zoom, Philip Wood (Aga Khan University) will give a book talk on The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, c. 750–850 (Princeton University Press, 2021) as part of our Islamic Law Speaker Series. This book examines how Christian leaders adopted and adapted the political practices and ideas of their Muslim rulers between 750 and 850 in the Abbasid caliphate in the Jazira (modern eastern Turkey and northern Syria). Focusing on the writings of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, the patriarch of the Jacobite church, Wood describes how this encounter produced an Islamicate Christianity that differed from the Christianities of Byzantium and western Europe in far more than just theology. In doing so, Wood opens a new window on the world of early Islam and Muslims’ interactions with other religious communities. Register today!

On Saturday April 13, 2024 at 10:00AM-4:00PM US EST at the Program in Islamic Law’s office in Austin Hall, our SHARIAsource Lab will lead a Hackathon: Arabic OCR Community Scribes event (registration required). Join us for a chance to help write the next chapter in the history of the Arabic script! We’ve teamed up with partners all over the world, bringing our efforts together to finally develop a dependable program that will allow texts using Arabic script to be machine readable. Come for a day-long event of transcription, and meet folks from all over campus and broader community who are also interested. No knowledge of coding or programming needed– we just need you to be able to recognize Arabic letters, and help teach the machine-learning program! Your work in checking and reviewing documents will allow scholars (including yourself!) to access, search, and explore historical and contemporary documents like never before. Lunch will be provided for those who RSVP. A limited number of seats are available for people who are interested in joining the hackathon virtually. Drop by for however long you can, to meet, chat, and transcribe! Registration is required. 

On Tuesday, February 13, 2024 at 12:30-1:30PM US EST via Zoom, Mohammed Allehbi (Harvard Law School) will present “Creating a new Criminal Law: The Military-Administrative origins of Siyasa” as part of our Islamic Law Speaker Series. His presentation will discuss how between 100 and 600 A.H./800 and 1200 C.E., Muslim rulers, governors, criminal magistrates, and police chiefs enforced criminal justice in cities with military-administrative methods and approaches largely distinct from the religious-jurisprudential frameworks established by jurists and judges collectively known as sharīʿa (sacred law). Criminal administration inflicted excessive beatings, coercive interrogations, and long-term imprisonment on suspects and criminals alike for the express purpose of maintaining government authority and public order. Building on late-Umayyad political epistles, namely the letters of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Kātib (d. 132/750) and the ʿahd Ardashīr (Testatment of Ardashīr), scribes and other officials sought to formulate a rubric to encompass and legitimize this military-administrative authority and procedures in criminal justice. They experimented with various terms and frameworks, such as raʾy (discretionary judgment), tadbīr (administration), sulṭān (governing authority), mulk (Kingship), culminating in siyāsa (governance) as the primary source for criminal justice. Rulers, criminal magistrates, police chiefs, scribes, and judges justified their authority and practices in criminal justice with the legal rubric of siyāsa. In this talk, he examines the formation of this critical source of Islamic criminal law by tracing the military-administrative genealogy of siyāsa in the mirror for princes, administrative manuals, and literary sources.  Register for the talk today!

We are kicking off the semester with our Roundtable on Transformation and Adaptation of Ottoman Land Law in 19th-Century Successor States! Throughout the month of February, scholars of Islamic law and history will be publishing essays on the Islamic Law Blog on the interpretation and adaptation of Ottoman land law in 19^th century successor states and administrations. The roundtable features case studies that focus on Greece after the War of Independence (1821-1830), the situation of Bosnia-Herzegovina under the rule of Austrian Empire, Serbia, and Bulgaria after the Berlin Treaty (1878), exploring the impact of transformations and translation processes on the privatization of estates and agricultural lands, the legal rights of landholders, and the link between land ownership and sovereignty. The discussion aims to understand continuity and change between Ottoman and successor state legal systems by analyzing bureaucratic interactions and the use of Ottoman and European legal sources. By considering the political and economic reasons behind these legal changes, including how new administrations used them for nation-building, the roundtable offers new perspectives on legal continuity and adaptation in post-Ottoman regions and, by focusing the situation of land regimes before and after the promulgation of the Ottoman Land Code in 1858, a chance to observe the transformation of Ottoman land law in the long 19th century. The scholars will convene on March 4, 2024 at 12:30pm EST, in a live webinar over Zoom, to discuss the findings in their essays.

(Image Credit: Public Domain)