Islamic Law Egypt
- Adjudicating Islamic Family Law in Egypt: Continuity and Rupture
A post-doctoral research project focusing on adjudication of Muslim marriage and divorce law by Egyptian courts before and after the 2011 revolution. More generally, the research focuses on the intersection between law, religion, and gender in this field. The overall aim of the project is to contribute to the scholarly literature on law in context and in action, more specifically a growing literature on the implementation of shari‘a-derived family legislations in courts. Given that Muslim family law is ostensibly drawn from the stipulations of Islamic shari‘a, a further aim is to shed light on the intersection between law and Islamic normativity in this field of law, and how legal reasoning is shaped by a modern, positivistic conception of law. At the core of this study was an analysis of judicial practice at five Cairenese family courts. With a view to investigate how Cairenes family courts integrate various social classes into what they regard as the essence of Islam, she draws material from five family courts in different neighbourhoods in Cairo during the period 2011-2015. The project addresses how judges articulate notions of gender relations in relation to contraction of marriage and divorce.
RESEARCHER
Monika Lindbekk
Email: monika [dot] lindbekk [at] soclaw [dot] lu [dot] se
CONFERENCE & WORKSHOP PAPERS
Lindbekk, Monika. “Women Judges in Egypt between Legalism and Equity.” This paper was presented at the conference titled Uses of the Past in Islamic Law at Exeter University, 28 September 2018.
Lindbekk, Monika. “Balancing the Rights of Child and Parent: The Case of Minor Marriage in Egypt”. Paper presented during the workshop Criminalising and Emancipatory Trends in Family Law in Indonesia and other Muslim Majority Countries convened at Leiden University, 16 November 2018. The material presented there will become part of the book manuscript I am scheduled to submit to springer in March 2021.
Lindbekk, Monika. “Women judges in Muslim jurisdictions: the cases of Egypt”. Paper presented during research seminar women judges in Egypt and Turkey organized together with Seda Kalam (Istanbul Bilgi University) at the Sociology of Law Department, Lund University, 23 January 2019.
Lindbekk, Monika. “Religion in Legal Discourse”. Paper presented to my colleagues at LU during seminar regarding a textbook about socio-legal research for bachelor students in sociology of law at the convened 10 April 2019.
Lindbekk, Monika. Ajudicating the Family in Egypt: Material Tensions in Muslim Family Law. Paper presented at the internal workshop THE MULTIPLE MATERIALITIES OF MUSLIM MARRIAGES, International ERC Muslim Marriage Workshop at the University of Amsterdam, 13-14 June 2019.
Lindbekk, Monika (presenting author) and Bassam Bahgat (non-presenting author, Chevening scholar, Kingston University): “Blasphemy and the cultivation of religious sensibilities in post-2011 Egypt”. Workshop on Blasphemy and transgressive speech in a globalized world organized by the University of Oslo, 12-13 October 2019
Lindbekk, Monika. “Tensions and ambiguities in Muslim family law: the case of Egypt.” Presentation at research seminar on gender and judging in Muslim jurisdictions at Leiden University, 12 December 2019.
Lindbekk, Monika and Nadia Sonneveld (Leiden University). “Fieldwork Fears: Tales from Egypt and Morocco”. Presentation at research seminar organized together with Nadia Sonneveld at Leiden University, 13 January 2021
PUBLICATIONS
Introduction: Uses of the Past: Sharīʿa and Gender in Legal Theory and Practice in Palestine and Israel
Monika Lindbekk, Edres, N. & Schneider, I., 2018, Uses of the Past: Sharīʿa and Gender in Legal Theory and Practice in Palestine and Israel. Edres, N. & Schneider, I. (red.). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag
Filling Gaps in legislation: The Use of Fiqh by Contemporary Courts in Morocco, Egypt, and Indonesia
Monika Lindbekk, Dupret, B., Utriza Yakin, A. & Bouhya, A., 2019, I :Islamic Law and Society.27, 3
Implementing the law of khul’ in Egypt: Tensions and ambiguities in Muslim Family Law
Monika Lindbekk, 2020, Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World. 18: 265-294
Introduction: Gender and Judging in Muslim Courts: Emerging Scholarship and Debates
Susanne Dahlgren and Monika Lindbekk, 2020, Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World. 18: 117–142
Blasphemy and the Cultivation of Religious Sentiments in post-2011 Egypt
Monika Lindbekk & Bassam Bahgat, 2020, Blasphemies Compared: Transgressive Speech in a Globalised World.Routledge
EDITORSHIPS
Gender and Judging in Muslim Courts: Emerging Scholarship and Debates. Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 18-19, 2020.
Women Judges in Africa and the Middle East. Onati Socio-Legal Series, 2021, forthcoming.
OUTREACH
Lindbekk, Monika. 2020. Gender and judging in Muslim Courts. The New Middle East Blog, 18 December 2020. The Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies (CIMS), University of Oslo.
Lindbekk, Monika. Lag och Religion (transl.: ”Law and Religion”). 2020. In Om rättssociologisk tillämpning, edited by Ida Nafstad and Isabel Schoul. Lund: Studentlitteratur
Monika Lindbekk editor for special issue on Muslim family law | Sociology of Law Department (lu.se)