SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP
On Islamic Law
- In "Female Madrasas and Islamic Agency of Afghan Girls and Women: How Religious Education is Being Used by Afghan Women and Girls under the Taliban Regime" (Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice), Haroun Rahimi (American University of Afghanistan) and Faiza Muhammad Din (Humboldt University Berlin) examine "the potential of female madrasas in Afghanistan for allowing Afghan women to assert their agency in the face of extreme restrictions imposed on them by the Taliban. The experience of female religious education and activism from South Asia and Middle East is very different from the systematic restrictions that Afghan women experience under the Taliban, but these comparative cases help the authors conceptualize of female madrasa going under the Taliban as a way for Afghan women to assert their agency. Whilst it is too early to reach a definite conclusion, the analysis presented in this article suggests that the Afghan girls and women chose to go to madrasa to resist their oppressive environment. Most female interviewees believed that women should be allowed to continue their general education and work--subject to hijab and gender segregation--offering religious reasons for this belief. This suggests an intriguing possibility for madrasa-educated Afghan women that their religious education could enable societal and familial respect and their opinions on matters of rights of women in Islam could increase in value."
- In "Muslims were part of America’s story long before the republic began" (The Conversation), Iqbal Akhtar (Florida International University) observes that "among the five pillars of Islam is zakat, the obligation to give a fixed share – generally 2.5% – of one’s accumulated wealth to those in need. Alongside it runs ṣadaqa: voluntary charity given over and above that obligation, with no fixed rate and no appointed season, in a form as small as a kind word or as large as an endowment. Disciplined by these obligations, American Muslims have become outsized contributors to the nation’s charitable life. Though they make up roughly 1% of the population, American Muslims gave around US$4.3 billion to charity in 2020, according to researchers at Indiana University’s Muslim Philanthropy Initiative. On average, that’s about $3,200 per donor, compared to $1,900 from their non-Muslim neighbors.
On Islam and AI/Data Science
- In "Islamic Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence" (Islam Online), Musa A. Mosiudi (Islam Online) writes, "As autonomous algorithms begin to mimic human cognition and tools like CRISPR-Cas9 afford scientists the ability to rewrite the biological code of living organisms, humanity is forced to confront existential questions regarding identity, agency, and responsibility. For Muslims, these rapid shifts cannot be navigated through blind adoption or reactionary isolation. Instead, they demand a rigorous intellectual engagement rooted in the immutable text of the Quran and the lived example of the Sunnah. By filtering modern innovation through the comprehensive objectives of divine law, Islamic jurisprudence provides a balanced, ethically grounded framework that welcomes progress while firmly safeguarding the sanctity of human dignity and the natural order established by the Creator."
FIELD GUIDE TO ISLAMIC LAW ONLINE: RECENT SOURCES
The Field Guide to Islamic Law Online is an ever-growing collection of links to hundreds of primary sources and archival collections around the world, online. We recently added a new resource to this list:
- "The Special Collections Division of The University of Manchester Library holds a collection of nearly 15,000 fragments from the Genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo. They were purchased from the estate of Dr Moses Gaster in 1954. They are mostly written in Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and Arabic but there are also a few Judeo-Spanish, French, and Coptic items and a Yiddish (B 6619) and an Ottoman Turkish piece (Ar. 400). About 90% of the items are on paper, the remainder on parchment. Most of them are manuscripts but there are printed texts too....The fragments cover a wide range of topics including religious and literary texts, documentary sources, letters, and material relating to grammar, philosophy, medicine, astrology, and astronomy. The Gaster Genizah Collection is divided into more than a dozen series, that have been digitised or catalogued to various degrees."
UPCOMING EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES
Events:
- Workshop: Archival Abundances and Silences in Islamic Studies, Princeton University, October 2–3, 2026
- Conference: Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, November 21–24, 2026
- Conference: The Institutional Embedding of Shiʿi Imams: Kinship, Caliphs, Courts and Companions (700-900), University of Leiden, January 13–15, 2027
- Conference: Rupture or Continuity in Sharīʿa: (De)Colonizing Sharīʿa? International Conference, Centre for Islamic Studies (ISAM), Istanbul, Turkey, June 9–11, 2027
Opportunities:
- Award: Student Travel Award, Association for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies, September 1, 2026
- Call for Papers: Legal Research & Analysis, September 29, 2026
- Call for Papers: Trends in Intellectual Property Research, September 30, 2026
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