SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP
On Islamic Law
- In "The Moroccan Mellāḥ: Governing Jewish Spaces and the Islamic Secular" (Turkish Journal of Islamic Studies), Rachel M. Scott (Virginia Tech University) "examines the Moroccan institution of the mellāḥ—the walled Jewish quarters established in Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes, and Tetouan from 1438 onward—as a case study for testing Sherman Jackson's distinction between the sharʿī and non-sharʿī ("Islamic Secular") realms in Islamic governance. Tracing the mellāḥ's historical development through themes of protection, surveillance and control, communal autonomy, and spatial separation, the article argues that while the mellāḥ's establishment reflected pragmatic, non-sharʿī governmental decisions rather than explicit sharʿīa mandates, its underlying logic remained inseparable from sharʿī concepts of dhimma, jizya, and the power differential embedded in the protection-for-submission arrangement. The article contends that this entanglement complicates Jackson's claim that a clear boundary can be drawn between sharʿī and non-sharʿī domains, since institutions like the mellāḥ emerge from the interaction of both."
- In "Paradigm Shift or Dead End? A Critical Appraisal of Sherman Jackson’s Islamic Secular" (Turkish Journal of Islamic Studies), Florian Zemmin (Freie Universität Berlin) "offers a critical appraisal of Sherman Jackson's The Islamic Secular, situating the book within broader debates on secularity beyond the West. While appreciating the book's contribution to expanding conceptions of the secular, the author argues that its central terminological innovation—locating 'the secular' within religion itself via the shar'ī/non-shar'ī distinction—is less novel than it appears, resembling earlier distinctions made by Islamic reformists (e.g., sharī'ah/fiqh, dīn wa-dunyā) and paralleling work from the Leipzig-based 'Multiple Secularities' research program that the book largely bypasses. The essay questions whether 'religion' and 'the secular' can coherently be conceived as one contained within the other, given their conceptual interdependence, and raises concerns about the book's shifting usage of terms like 'law' and 'Islam.'"
- In "The Islamosecular: A Spatiotemporal Exploration" (Turkish Journal of Islamic Studies), Rushain Abbasi (Stanford University) "engages with Sherman Jackson's concept of "the Islamic secular" by proposing an alternative: collapsing the dual construct into a single term, 'the Islamosecular.' Rather than treating 'Islamic' and 'secular' as a noun modified by an adjective, the essay argues for attending to the spatiotemporal dimensions that underlie both concepts. Drawing on Wilfred Cantwell Smith's account of the reification of 'Islam' as a stand-alone category under colonial conditions, the essay traces how a formerly verbal, territorialized notion of al-islām was transformed into an abstracted, textualized 'religion' analogous to Western categories. It further examines the etymological and political genealogy of 'the secular'—from Roman ludi saeculares through ecclesiastical property transfer to modern state regulation of religion (citing the Diyanet and al-Azhar as examples)—to show that secularization is fundamentally a spatial and temporal project of sovereignty."
On Islam and AI/Data Science
- In "Artificial Intelligence in Qur'anic Interpretation: A Theological and Ethical Analysis" (Journal of Islamic Thought and Philosophy), Nehru Millat Ahmad (Sekolah Tinggi Islam Kendal) argues that "the development of Artificial Intelligence in the modern era has significantly transformed various aspects of human life, including Qur'anic studies and interpretation. Although AI enhances accessibility and efficiency in analyzing religious texts, it raises epistemological, theological, and ethical concerns regarding interpretative authority, validity of meaning, and the potential reduction of the spiritual dimension of the Qur'an. This study aims to examine the position of Artificial Intelligence within the epistemology of Qur'anic interpretation and to analyze its theological and ethical implications in Islamic thought. This research employs a qualitative library-based method using a critical hermeneutic approach analyzed through the framework of tafsīr epistemology and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah. The findings indicate that Artificial Intelligence functions as a complementary epistemic instrument capable of expanding linguistic analysis, intertextual mapping, and systematic processing of tafsīr data. However, Artificial Intelligence lacks historical consciousness, moral reflection, and intentionality of meaning, which are fundamental elements in Islamic interpretative epistemology."
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:
- Arab & Middle Eastern Genealogy Books Online is a "collection of books...from multiple sources, including New York University and FamilySearch. They are open-source books focused on genealogy from the Middle East and North Africa, including Arabic, Persian and English texts."
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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