Prerequisite: Enrollment is limited to 12 students and is by permission of the instructor. A prior course in Islamic Law is helpful, but not necessary. Students who have not taken a course on Islamic law or who are not concurrently enrolled in Professor Rabb’s Introduction to Islamic Law course must attend the first two sessions of the Islamic Law course, also taught this semester. Interested students should email Marzieh Noori (mnoori@law.harvard.edu) with a current resume and a short statement of interest including one or two topics you might be interested in writing about (not to exceed one page). Application deadline Sep 3, 2024. Students will be notified after this date of their admission to the Lab.

Exam: No Exam

This course provides an opportunity for students interested in assessing the way Islamic law functions in modern and historical contexts to work on discrete and directed research projects that use digital tools for research on interpretation in Islamic law (with focus on Islamic legal textualism and legal canons of construction) in a collaborative, interactive setting. The suite of digital tools that lab members will use in preparation and testing of the data operate under a project called “Courts & Canons”—a platform designed to explore courts, interpretation, and regulation of Islamic law. In the course of the lab work, students will select one or more legal canons related to legislation and interpretation in Muslim-majority countries to explore through data collection and preparation, and they will conduct research on questions of Islamic law that allows them to gain familiarity on pressing issues in the field and to test and refine AI tools. Typical research areas may include (but are not limited to) issues of Islamic criminal law, family law, and comparative constitutional law. Lab members should expect to meet roughly each week—6 times with the professor and other “working sessions” with the data scientists and engineers building tools for the lab and where they can work together collaboratively. Students will also have opportunities to track online debates, engage with leading scholars in the field, and identify new developments and sources for Islamic law related to their chosen research projects. Students will produce three short papers (500-1000 words), which may be selected for publication opportunities on the islamiclaw.blog or SHARIAsource.com—a hub for content and context on Islamic law (for primary sources and data science tools).