News

In their recent article “Digitized Canon: Intisar Rabb’s Work to Develop SHARIAsource and Other Resources on Islamic Law,” the Institute for Quantitative Social Science spotlights PIL Faculty Director, Professor Intisar Rabb. In this interview, Professor Rabb describes the journey that created her vision of a world where scholars like herself could find sources online, which was just the beginning of what would become SHARIAsource. She is now working  with scholars and institutions to concentrate on the larger challenge that will advance the most promising frontier of legal scholarship: expansive AI and data science tools to gain insights into Islamic law. “If indeed we think of ourselves as a global institution and a global law school, then certainly a part of that has to be leading the charge in consuming and expanding the study of Islamic law as a part of the laws of the world; after all, this field covers a fifth of the world’s population,” said Professor Rabb. “Combining data science tools plus digital texts, and placing them in comparative context, will strengthen the study of both American and Islamic law in a way that is simply unparalleled. We are excited for what is to come.” Read the entire article here.