On June 30, 2021, PIL Faculty Director, Professor Intisar Rabb presented a lecture on Islamic criminal law in medieval and modern times. Her lecture is a comparative review of the history of crime and punishment in Islamic societies. In most studies of the penal code or Islamic law, the principles, practices and justifications of punishment tend […]
On April 13, 2022 at 3:50- 5:00 pm (EST), PIL Faculty Director, Professor Intisar Rabb presented the Irving Tragen Lecture on Comparative Law at UC Berkeley Law titled “Metacanons: Comparative Textualism at SCOTUS and in Islamic Law.”This talk took a comparative law look at shared methods of interpretation for textualists in two very different legal systems: […]
On Tuesday, April 12, 2022 12:00-1:00PM US EST via Zoom, Professor Irene Schneider (Göttingen University) spoke about her new book, “Debating the Law, Creating Gender: Sharia and Lawmaking in Palestine” (Brill, 2021). She examined how family law in Palestine, despite being a controversial topic publicly debated by representatives of the state, Sharia establishment, and civil society, does […]
On Tuesday, March 8, 2022, Professor Issam Eido (Vanderbilt University) presented “Pre-Canonical Islamic Legal Canons: An Analysis of Early Hanafi Literature” as part of our Islamic Law Speaker Series. Eido traced the legal canons that were used in early Hanafi sources, beginning with Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī’s (d. 189/805) works and ending with Abū Zayd […]
On Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 12:00-1:00PM US EST via Zoom, Dr. Hedayat Heikal presented “Inheritance versus Personal Status: Shifting National Strategies in Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia.” Heikal argued that demands for equality in inheritance among similarly situated male and female heirs have taken a confessionalist turn. Whether by legislation in Syria or through court […]
On December 1, 2021, we hosted a Roundtable on Islamic Legal Genres as a culmination of the monthly lecture series where a group of scholars of Islamic law and history met monthly to explore the form and function of genres popular in Islamic law. This event was convened by Hakki Arslan, Necmettin Kizilkaya, and, PIL Faculty Director, Intisar Rabb. Contributing scholars include Hakki Arslan, Ahmad […]
On October 27, 2021, Marion Katz (New York University) presented “Form, Function and Historical Development of the ṭabaqāt al-fuqaha literature.” Katz’ talk was composed of three sections: a review of scholarship on ṭabaqāt, followed by the objectives of legal biographies, and finally a discussion of whether or not ṭabaqāt constitute a single coherent genre. Professor Katz argues that […]
On Tuesday, November 9, 2021, Dr. Katharina Ivanyi (University of Vienna) spoke about her new book, Virtue, Piety and the Law: A Study of Birgivī Meḥmed Efendī’s (d. 981/1573) al-Ṭarīqa al-muḥammadiyya (Brill, 2020). Ivanyi examined a major work of pietist exhortation and advice composed by the sixteenth-century Ottoman jurist, Ḥadīth scholar, and grammarian, who articulates a style of religiosity […]
On Tuesday, October 19, 2021, PIL Data Science Fellow, Dr. Yusuf Celik, presented “Islamicate Digital Humanities and Redefining the Hermeneutical Circle in the Age of Data Science.” Noting that one of the most recognizable tropes in hermeneutics is undoubtedly the ‘hermeneutical circle,’ Celik argued that this has symbolized the dialectical nature of our understanding, namely that we understand the whole from its parts and […]
On September 29, 2021, Anas Sarmini (29 Mayis University, Istanbul) presented “Form, Function, and Historical Development of Ikhtilāf al-fuqahāʾ as a Genre.” Sarmini’s lecture described the historical development of ikhtilāf literature over three phases, and the influence of two intellectual currents in forging this genre of Islamic law. Ikhtilāf, or legal controversy, was an important way of articulating […]
