April 3rd, 2019 – Dr. Saadia Yacoob, Assistant Professor of Religion at Williams College, gave a talk at ACMCU exploring the legal construction of gender in early Islamic law, through a close reading of the “legal works for the 11th century Muslim jurist,” Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Sarakhsī.
Dr. Saadia Yacoob is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Williams College. She holds a PhD in Islamic studies from Duke University and an MA from the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. Her research focuses on the construction of gender in early Islamic legal discourse, analyzing the normative constructions of maleness and femaleness at the intersection of other social categories. More broadly, her research interests include Islamic legal history, Muslim feminist studies, history of sexuality, and legal studies. She has a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law on the contribution made by gender scholars to the study of Islamic law and is currently working on a book titled Reading Gender in Early Islamic Law.
