Join us for a book talk with Dr. Bahman Kh odadadi to discuss his recent book On Theocratic Criminal Law: The Rule of Religion and Punishment in Iran.
On Theocratic Criminal Law explores the roots and structures of the criminal law system of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It examines the processes of forced de-westernization and de-mode rnization that followed Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and how the Islamic conception of civil order and polity has been established within the legal and theological framework of the Iranian Constitution. The book engages in a “rational reconstruction” of Iranian theocratic criminal law and offers a critical analysis of how criminal law functions as the centerpiece of this mode of theocratic domination. It also explores the jurisprudential princi ples and dynamic power of Shi’ite Islam not only as a driving force behind political and social change but as a force that has been capable of forging a whole theocratic legal system.
The discussion will be moderated by Abadir M. Ibrahim\, Assocaite Director of the Human Rights Program at Harv ard Law School.
Lunch will be provided. Open to Harvard ID holders on ly.
Bahman Khodadadi is a Post-Doc Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. He previously held fellowships at the Program in Islamic Law at Harv ard Law School and at the Library of Congress. Prior to that\, he served as a Research Associate at the Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization at Yale Law School. His research expertise lies in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies\, with a particular focus on Shīʿī Islamic jurispru dence. His scholarship spans Iranian studies\, the sociology of law\, the h istory of Islamic law\, criminal law theory\, and the politico-juridical dy namics of Shīʿī legal traditions.
This event is co-organized by The Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World and The Human Rights Progra m at Harvard Law School.
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