Welcoming Abbasi Visiting Scholar, Dr. Sohaira Siddiqui

The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies is delighted to host Dr. Sohaira Siddiqui as Visiting Scholar for the duration of the autumn quarter. Dr. Siddiqui is an Associate Professor of Theology at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Her work focuses on the relationship between law, theology and political thought in classical Islam; Islamic law during British colonization; Islamic law in contemporary Muslim societies; and secularism and modernity in relation to Muslims in the West.

She received her doctorate in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014. Most recently, she is the author of Law and Politics Under the 'Abbasids: An Intellectual Portrait of al-Juwayni (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Locating the Shari'a: Legal Fluidity in Theory, History and Practice (Brill, 2019). She has also published numerous articles in Islamic Law and Society, Journal of Islamic Studies, Journal of the American Oriental Society, and Middle East Law and Governance. She serves as one of the series editors for Mohr Siebeck's Sapientia Islamica: Studies in Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism, and as an Editor for Harvard Law School's SHARIAsource. She has held fellowships at Cambridge University, Tubingen University and Harvard Law School. 

At Stanford, she will be working with Professor Alexander Key on her translation of al-Juwayni's Kitab al-Ijtihad, which explores the ontological possibility of multiple correct legal rulings.She is also currently focusing on her second book, Fractured Modernities: Contesting Islamic Law in Colonial India which focuses on the juridical thought of the first Muslim judges to serve on the High Courts in British India during the 18th and 19th centuries. The project aims to analyze the changing dynamics of the Hanafi legal school after the promulgation of Anglo-Muhammadan law and the participation of Muslims in the adjudicative process.