Without knowledge action is useless, and knowledge without action is futile.
Research is the core of KARAMAH’s work, and serves as the bridge between thought and action in the struggle for Muslim women’s rights. KARAMAH’s authentic, yet innovative research in Islamic jurisprudence is the source of the knowledge base essential to the promotion of the rights of Muslim women throughout the world. However, an understanding of Islamic jurisprudence alone is not enough to build networks of Muslim women and men around the world who support the rights Islam grants to women. In order to become agents of change, future leaders also need knowledge and skills that will allow them to navigate sensitive issues and cogently present their thoughts. For this reason, KARAMAH also produces, collects, and disseminates research on leadership and conflict resolution.
Highly-qualified scholars in their own right, KARAMAH’s research staff is vital to the success of many of KARAMAH’s endeavors. One of their major responsibilities is to develop curricula for KARAMAH’s educational programs, and their expertise is also shared first-hand with program participants when KARAMAH scholars teach in our programs and workshops. Our Research team communicates knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence, leadership, and conflict resolution to the public at large, often speaking at scholarly functions. They are also frequent commentators on news programs, bringing our unique perspective to current events.
Research staff also has the task of monitoring and maintaining our Jurist Network – a network of over 400 scholars from around the world who contribute scholarly works on a variety of topics to our scholarship database.
Interpreting the Qur’an and the Constitution: Similarities in the Use of Text, Tradition, and Reason in Islamic and American Jurisprudence
Asifa Quraishi-Landes
Can interpreting the Qur’an be anything like interpreting the Constitution? These documents are usually seen to represent overwhelming opposites in our global legal and cultural landscapes. How, after all, can there be any room for comparison between a legal system founded on revelation and one based on a man-made document? What this premise overlooks, however, is that the nature of the founding legal text tells only the beginning of the story. With some comparative study of the legal cultures that formed around the Qur’an and the Constitution, a few common themes start to emerge, and ultimately it turns out that there may be as much the same as is different between the jurisprudence of Islam and the United States. Though set against very different cultures and legal institutions, jurists within Islamic law have engaged in debates over legal interpretation that bear a striking resemblance to debates in the world of American constitutional theory. We will here set these debates next to each other, illustrating some important similarities between the two legal cultures clearly visible despite their differences.
Negative Connotations Surrounding Sharia Must be Dispelled
Abed Awad
As attorneys, we have an obligation to correct the truth about the role of any foreign law in our system. It is always subject to the limits of the Constitution. That is the law of the land. The politicization of this issue is undermining the integrity of our judicial system and constitutional protections. US judges are equipped with the necessary legal tools to evaluate legal and factual issues before them without the requirement of bright line rules, especially those that originate out of misinformation, distortion and outright discrimination.
Religion-Based Claim in Abuse Case Wisely Pierced by Appeals Court
Abed Awad
The three-judge panel held on July 23 in S.D. v. M.J.R , A-6107-08, that the defendant’s nonconsensual sexual intercourse with his wife was “unquestionably knowing, regardless of his view that his religion permitted him to act as he did.” The ruling is a good first step toward undoing a misperception that Muslim culture condones violence against women. In fact, the ruling is consistent with Islamic law, which prohibits spousal abuse, including nonconsensual sexual relations. For example, there are reported cases where a wife was acquitted of murdering her husband because she acted in self-defense in an abusive relationship.
Oklahoma Amendment is Unconstitutional: Barring Courts From Considering Shariah Law Violates the Supremacy Clause and the First Amendment
Abed Awad
On Election Day, the Oklahoma voters passed an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution that provides that the “Courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the Court shall not consider International law or Sharia law,” dictates the amendment. This amendment is unconstitutional on its face, and a federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction against it pending a hearing on Nov. 22.
