Islam Archives - Canopy Forum

“Will Abū Ḥanīfa Have a Beer and Smoke Ḥashīsh with Me in Jannah? Changing Perceptions of Khamr, Ijmā’, Bid’ah, and Sunnīte Islamic Law” by Scott Bursey

Apr 17, 2025Canopy ForumEssaysApril 2025, Bursey, Scott, History, Islam

Frontispiece from a copy of Kalila wa Dimna of Abuʼl-Maʻali Nasr Allah by Unknown Author (Public Domain). Unlike the authoritative structures within Shī’a Islam which draw legitimacy from an ecclesiastical-style structure of liturgical and theological intermediaries, Sunnīs approach Islamic law from the basis of a shared consensus. This doctrine of ijmā’ (consensus), in which adherents…

“Speaking Truth to Power in Challenging Times: Lessons from the Arab Spring Politics of Muslim Jurists” by Muhammad Amasha

Apr 10, 2025Canopy ForumEssaysAmasha, Muhammad, April 2025, Islam, Media and Culture, Religion and State

Image by Bassel Zaki from Pixabay. I spent the last six years studying the politics of intellectuals, broadly understood as people of knowledge. While I mainly focused on some leading Egyptian religious Muslim jurists’ stances on the 2011 Arab Revolutions, I have also observed intellectuals adhering to other traditions at different politically charged moments. As…

“Defining a Muslim; The Case of Pakistan and its Ahmadis” by Yasser Latif Hamdani

Mar 12, 2025Canopy ForumEssaysAsia (Geography), Constitutional Law, Hamdani, Yasser Latif, Islam, March 2025

Main chamber of Badshahi Mosque by User:Amjad.m (CC BY-SA 3.0) On January 16th, 2025, the government of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, demolished a historic Ahmadi mosque in the city of Daska. This mosque was built by Zafrullah Khan (1893-1985), Pakistan’s first foreign minister and one of the founding fathers of the country. This is…

“Discrimination After Death: The Afterlives of Muslims in Spain” by Paula M. Arana Barbier

Jan 14, 2025Canopy ForumSeriesArana Barbier, Paula M., Europe (Geography), Islam, January 2025, Religious Freedom

Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park, Spain. Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). This article is part of our virtual symposium and essay series, “Masking Religious Freedom Violations.” Read more here. Despite common assumptions, our social and political lives do not simply end once we die; the idea of an afterlife, although mainly theological, can also…

“The Muslim Family Law Reform: Exploring Cross-National and Historical Differences” by Yüksel Sezgin

Oct 9, 2024Canopy ForumEssaysFamily Law, Islam, October 2024, Religious Law and Legal Systems, Sezgin, Yüksel

Illustration commissioned for this project by Tahira Rifath Fifty-three nations (35 Muslim-majority, 18 Muslim-minority) formally integrate shari‘a-based Muslim Family Laws (MFLs) into their domestic legal systems and enforce them through state-run (religious or civil) courts adjudicating familial disputes among their Muslim citizens. State-enforced MFLs often violate people’s fundamental rights and liberties. For example, in many…

“‘Churches Can, Mosques Can’t’: Race, Immigration, and Islam in Belgium” by Hafsa Oubou

Jan 4, 2024Canopy ForumEssaysEurope (Geography), Human Rights / Civil Rights, Islam, January 2024, Religious Freedom

View of the Lys river in the centre of Ghent, Belgium by Joaquim Alves Gaspar (CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed). In July 2023, the government of the Netherlands abruptly collapsed amid a heated disagreement over migration. At the core of this debate was an attempt to limit the right of child refugees from war zones to…

“Death Sentence and Imprisonment under Nigerian Blasphemy Laws” by Georgia du Plessis

Oct 13, 2023Canopy ForumEssaysAfrica (Geography), du Plessis, Georgia, Islam, October 2023, Religious Freedom

“Okotie Eboh Street, Lagos, Nigeria” by Obinna Okerekeocha on Unsplash. Blasphemy is the “act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God” and laws upholding blasphemy as a crime fail to respect the human right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu (also known as Deborah Samuel) was…

“POWR Talk: What does Islam say about democracy?” by Courtney Freer

Sep 21, 2023Canopy ForumSeriesConstitutional Law, Freer, Courtney, Islam, Politics, September 2023

Picture of The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria by James Gordon (CC BY 2.0) This article is part of our “Reassessing Democracy: Contemporary Perspectives” series. If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Since the 9.11 attacks and subsequent Global War on Terror, one of the major fields of study related to…

“Reassessing Democracy: Contemporary Christian and Islamic Perspectives” by Whittney Barth

Sep 15, 2023Canopy ForumSeriesBarth, Whittney, Constitutional Law, Islam, Politics, September 2023

Picture of the Chicago Skyline from Grant Park in by James Conkis (CC BY-SA 4.0). This essay is an introduction to our thematic series, “Reassessing Democracy: Contemporary Christian and Islamic Perspectives.” How do religious communities approach democracy? What religious beliefs, practices, and histories inform those views? And what does democracy look like when viewed through…

“How German Muslims and Christians Criticize Capitalism” by Christian Sperneac-Wolfer

Sep 12, 2023Canopy ForumEssaysEurope (Geography), Human Rights / Civil Rights, Islam, September 2023, Sperneac-Wolfer, Christian

Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. Throughout its history, capitalism has been met with harsh religious resistance and objections. Today, both Islam and Christianity continue to criticize capitalist economies and societies for injustice, exploitation, and the concept of humanity. In such criticism of economy and society, actors refer to religious ideas to reinterpret their situation, ideas…