Dilyara Agisheva

Dilyara Agisheva is a legal historian of empire with a focus on Islamic law in the Russian and Ottoman worlds. She received her PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Georgetown University. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Program in Islamic Law at Harvard Law School and at the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto. Her work examines how Islamic legal institutions operated under imperial rule and how legal practices were transformed through colonial governance. She is currently a remote affiliate of the Max Weber Kolleg at the University of Erfurt and a member of the ERC project (De)Colonizing Sharia. Her research combines legal history with approaches from conceptual history.

Dilyara's project examines how property law and ownership practices were transformed in Crimea after its annexation by the Russian Empire in 1783. Although rarely included in Middle Eastern studies, Crimea was historically part of the Ottoman–Islamic world, where Islamic legal institutions shaped property, inheritance, and landholding. Building on the concept of “entangled legal formations,” the project analyzes how Islamic and imperial legal systems coexisted and interacted under Russian rule. Focusing on property, it traces how ownership was redefined through imperial reforms, especially in relation to inheritance, gender norms, waqf endowments, and foreign settlement. A central concern is evidentiary practice: how ownership claims were proven and adjudicated across legal forums, often relying on Islamic legal documents even as Islamic courts were restricted.

The project contributes to broader debates on legal translation, colonial governance, and the selective incorporation of Islamic law under European imperial rule.

• “Against Imperial Scripts: Persistence of Black Sea Trade across Ottoman and Russian Rule,” in Transottoman Worlds: Mobility Dynamics between Europe, Africa, and Asia, 15th–20th. c.. Brill, 2026 (forthcoming) (accepted, under final reviews)
• “Scholarly Debates: Moving Past Structural Death.” Journal of Islamic Law, vol. 4, no. 1, June, 2023.
• “A.I. Runovskii” and “Zapiski o Shamile” in Thomas, David, and John A. Chesworth. Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 23. Russia (1800-1914). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 28 Nov. 2024.
• “Vasilij Ivanovich Kelsiev” and “Gonenie na Krymskikh Tatar” in Thomas, David, and John A. Chesworth. Chris- tian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 23. Russia (1800-1914). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 28 Nov. 2024.
• “Stepanov” and “Piat’ mesiacev v Dagestane” in Thomas, David, and John A. Chesworth. Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 23. Russia (1800-1914). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 28 Nov. 2024.