Dr. Sheibani’s publications explore the history of Islamic law and its institutions, law’s relationship with morality, and the implications of these traditions for Muslims today.

Oxford Journal of Law and Religion (2024)

This forthcoming article reconstructs Shafiʿi legal history during the period of the two tariqas, the Shafiʿi communities of Khurasan and the Iraq in the tenth and eleventh centuries CE. An analysis of these two communities demonstrates how fluid Shafiʿi networks gradually evolved into two discrete communities, separated not only by geography, but also distinguished by diverging interpretive choices, legal authorities and texts, and commitments to rational theology. The study not only complicates our understanding of the what constitutes the postformative madhhab as an institution, but also reveals how broader developments in intellectual and institutional life – such as the ascendance of Ash‘arism, the emergence of new centers of intellectual life, and the introduction of the madrasa – shaped the internal workings of the madhhab.

Religions (2024)

This article explores the phenomenon of “secret marriages” in Muslim-minority communities through three lenses: the legal, the moral, and the socio-institutional. The article argues that marriage in Islam is a public institution and that while jurists stipulate disparate minimums for contractual validity, the most secret marriage arrangements are considered invalid and prohibited in themselves, or for their entailments, meaning that contracting such a marriage is sinful. The essay highlights the need for public education on Muslim marriage practices that is embedded in a deeper religious morality centering the Sunna to counteract the dominant legalism in the Muslim community that underlies numerous contemporary dilemmas

The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Women (2023)

This chapter examines women’s rights and obligations pertaining to marriage, divorce, and inheritance in classical legal literature (8th to 18th century CE). It summarizes the classical doctrines on these topics according to the four Sunni legal schools and the Twelver Shi‘i school and discusses the scriptural foundations, underlying assumptions, and legal logic underpinning these rules. The chapter further juxtaposes these formal rules with the practice of a range of Muslim societies to demonstrate how Muslims throughout history have employed legal strategies and customary practices to reshape, accommodate, and circumvent formal rules in response to sociohistorical needs. It also shows how other religious discourses besides Islamic law articulate normatively binding moral and religious prescriptions that sit alongside or complicate legal obligations and court-enforceable rights.

Islamic Law and Society (2022)

This article explores the context and impetus for the Mamluk state-led reform of the judiciary through a contentious court case about a minor orphan girl’s marriage and its dissolution. It reconstructs the procedural problems in Ayyubid courts, which lacked a coherent jurisprudence and institutional oversight to prevent abuses of power by unscrupulous or inept officials. This case exposes the social and institutional dilemmas that the court reform sought to address. It also offers a window onto how Muslim legal institutions evolved in response to social dilemmas and abuses of power.

Journal of the American Oriental Society (2020)

This article compares al-Furuq, the collection of legal maxims and distinctions authored by al-Qarafi (1228-85 CE), a leading Maliki jurist, with al-Qawaʿid al-kubra, the collection of his Shafiīi teacher, Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam (1171-1262 CE). It demonstrates Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam’s enduring influence on Maliki thought and reveals the tensions surrounding cultures of education and cross-madhhab intellectual influence in thirteenth-century Cairo.

The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law (2017)

This chapter, co-authored with Ahmed El Shamsy and Amir Toft, revisits academic debates regarding the role of the Qur’an and Hadith, respectively, in the formulation of Islamic law. It reviews scholarship on the phases of Islamic law’s development, beginning with the emergence of geographically defined legal traditions and culminating in the formation of the legal schools and their distinctive theoretical principles and substantive doctrines. It concludes by suggesting directions for future research.