In this episode of History Speaks on the Maydan Podcast, Tazeen Ali speaks with Aria Nakissa about his recent book, The Anthropology of Islamic Law: Education, Ethics, and Legal Interpretation at Egypt’s al-Azhar (Oxford University Press, 2019). They discuss shifting pedagogical approaches to Islamic education, modes of reading religious texts, and the relationships between knowledge and ethics in Islamic law and more broadly in both religious and secular educational settings.
Aria Nakissa is a scholar of law and religion in Muslim societies and assistant professor of Islamic Studies and Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He holds a PhD and an MA in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, a JD from Harvard Law School, and an MA in Islamic Law from the International Islamic University in Malaysia. He is the author of The Anthropology of Islamic Law: Education, Ethics, and Legal Interpretation at Egypt’s al-Azhar published in 2019 with Oxford University Press.
Tazeen M. Ali is a scholar of Islam and gender in the United States and assistant professor at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. She holds a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University and an MA in Islamic Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of The Women’s Mosque of America: Authority & Community in US Islam, forthcoming in November 2022 with New York University Press.