Join the Middle East Institute for its Sharīʿa Workshop entitled: "Islamic Law As a Discursive Tradition" with a case study on court practices using the Islamic equivalent of "best interests of the child" legal principle. Our guest leading a discussion will be Dr. Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim of McGill University.

Dr. Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim is assistant professor of Islamic law at McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies in Montreal, Canada. He holds a BA from al-Azhar University, an MA from the American University in Cairo, and a PhD in Islamic Studies from Georgetown University (2011). His research interests include juristic discourse and court practice in both the formative period of Islamic law and the post-classical Mamluk and Ottoman periods. He has recently completed a book manuscript on the theory and practice of child custody in Ottoman Egypt and the role social perceptions of the family and the child’s best interests influenced judicial practice, leading to tensions with the jurisprudence of author-jurists. He is currently working on two book manuscripts entitled, “Judicial Custom in Islamic Law: A Theory of Practice,” and “Child Adoption in Early Modern Egypt.” He is the author of Pragmatism in Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2017). His last two projects have been supported with research grants from the Fonds de recherché du Quebec—Societe et Culture (FRQSC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

To receive a copy of the discussion papers in advance, please contact amb49@columbia.edu.