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Weekend Scholarship Roundup

September 25, 2026

SCHOLARSHIP ROUNDUP

On Islamic Law

In Litigating Subjects: Algerian Women, Local Courts, and the Making of Colonial Law (Stanford University Press), Sarah Ghabrial (Concordia University) “examines the activities of Algeria's Muslim courts to reveal how Algerian subjects both incorporated and subverted colonial legal authorities and thereby exploited the tensions of the colonial state.”
In “Harmonizing Criminal Law with Islamic Ethics, Economic Justice, and Legal Education: A Comparative Analysis of Selected OIC Countries” (Natural Resources for Human Health), Mohammad Nasr Khater (Applied Science Private University) and others develop “an Integrated Criminal Law Harmonization Framework, consisting of four interconnected pillars: Islamic Ethical Governance, Economic Justice Policies, Modern Criminal Law Reform, and Transformative Legal Education. The proposed framework provides a comprehensive model for reducing crime, strengthening the rule of law, improving judicial legitimacy, protecting human rights, and promoting sustainable development while accommodating the constitutional and legal diversity of OIC member states."

On Islam and AI/Data Science

In “Digital Eschatology in Islamicate Traditions: a Comparative Study of Inter-Religious Prophecies” (Journal of Digital Islamicate Research), Mohammed Qasim Khan (University of Malaya) suggests that “AI-produced religious texts tend to support conventional theological doctrines and, at the same time, allow the emergence of novel links between Islamic, Christian and Jewish apocalypticism.” [login required]
In “Artificial Intelligence in Islamic Guidance: Assessing Chatbot Performance and Jurisprudential Adherence” (Journal of Digital Islamicate Research), Soleh Hasan Wahid (Institut Agama Islam Negeri Ponorogo) “recommends collaboration between Islamic scholars and AI developers to create epistemologically grounded systems.”

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:

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: