Irene Schneider

Irene Schneider holds the Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Göttingen University since 2003  (currently on leave). She gained her PhD from the University of Tübingen in 1989 and her Habilitation from Cologne University in 1996 . Her main fields of interests are ḥadīth-research; reconstruction of early Islamic history; Islamic law in its historical and contemporary manifestations; gender and law in Muslim countries; Islam in Germany; contemporary concepts of ideas and history (civil society, human rights; translation); and law and colonialism. She has worked on Iran, Afghanistan, Morocco and Palestine.

ERC Advanced Grant 2024: (De)Colonizing Sharia?” Tracing Transformation, Change and Continuity in Islamic Law in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the 19th and 20th Centuries

European colonialism’s encounter with Islamic law or Sharia, the main pillar of the pre-colonial legal systems in the Middle East and North Africa, has had a tremendous impact until today. The implementation of modern European-style legal systems has led, as some scholars claim, to the abolishment of Sharia. Others consider the legal changes through which Muslim societies have transited as a sign of Sharia’s flexibility rather than its demise. The principal question this project addresses is therefore: How was Sharia transformed by colonialism? The question mark in the project title “(De)Colonizing Sharia?” allows us to deliberately leave open the extent of the continuities, changes or ruptures that characterized Sharia during the colonial and the postcolonial periods and focuses on the processes of transformation. The project relies on extensive archival fieldwork and the intensive reading of texts to investigate the codification/legislation, jurisprudence/legal theory and judicial institutions in Egypt, Morocco, The Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Iran and Crimea representing diverse forms – British, French and Russian – of the colonial encounter. We focus on the agency of legal actors, provide paradigmatic case studies for comparative evaluation and reflect on the fundamental terminological and theoretical questions underlying how “(De)Colonizing Sharia?” can be adequately grasped, researched and described. More broadly, my team and I expect high returns by challenging the scholarship grounded in European terminologies, theory and academic traditions in close cooperation with our colleagues in the region. We are convinced that the results will be highly relevant for contemporary academic and political discourses in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere, and for the emerging field of decolonial legal studies.

• „Islamisches Recht“. In Islam II: Religionen, Lebensformen, Geistesgeschichte, hrsg. von Georges Tamer, 265–289. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2025.
• “‘Honour’-Crime? ‘Just’ Family Violence? Was it the Jinnī in the End?” In Rethinking the Anthropology of Islam: Dynamics of Change in Muslim Societies, hrsg. von Ulrike Freitag, 355–378. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2024.
• „Sharia in Transition. Female Judges in Palestinian Sharia Courts“. In Scharia im Wandel: Beiträge zur Transformation islamischer Autorität im Spannungsfeld von Kodifikation, Migration und Digitalisierung, hrsg. von Mahmud El-Wereny und Alexander-Kenneth Nagel, 21–50. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2024.
• „Migration und Heimatrecht. Herausforderungen muslimisch geprägter Zuwanderung nach Deutschland“. In Studies on Islamic Cultural and Intellectual History 5, hrsg. von Irene Schneider, Hatem Elliesie und Silvia Tellenbach. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2022.
• „International Law between Translation and Pluralism“. In Studies on Islamic Cultural and Intellectual History 4, hrsg. von Noorhaidi Hasan und Irene Schneider. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2022.
• „Vorwort“. In Migration und Heimatrecht. Herausforderungen muslimisch geprägter Zuwanderung nach Deutschland, hrsg. von Irene Schneider, Hatem Elliesie und Silvia Tellenbach, 7–12. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2022.
• „Introduction“. In International Law between Translation and Pluralism, hrsg. von Noorhaidi Hasan und Irene Schneider, 7–20. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2022.
• „Translating International Law into a System of Legal Pluralism: The Role and the Influence of the Sharia Judicial System in Palestine and CEDAW“. In International Law between Translation and Pluralism, hrsg. von Noorhaidi Hasan und Irene Schneider, 71–98. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2022. (Studies on Islamic Cultural and Intellectual History 4).
• „Geschlecht & Recht: Debatten um das Personalstatut in Palästina“. In Rechtshandbuch für Frauen und Gleichstellungsbeauftragte, Bd. 2, 1–28. Hamburg: Verlag Dashöfer 2022.
• „The Religious and the Secular: Othering in Legal and Political Debates in Palestine in 2013“. In Religious Othering, Global Dimensions, hrsg. von Mark Juergensmeyer, Kathleen Moore und Dominic Sachsenmaier, 123–146. London: Routledge 2022.
• „Das Verhältnis von Staat und Religion und Recht in der Moderne: Demokratie und Menschenrechte, Geschlechtergleichheit und Religionsfreiheit“. In Islam III. Vom 19. Jahrhundert bis heute, hrsg. von Peter Antes, 371–399. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2022.
• Debating the Law, Creating Gender: Sharia and Lawmaking in Palestine, 2012–2018. Leiden: Brill 2021. (Women and Gender. The Middle East and the Islamic World 18).
• „Knowledge, Science and Local Tradition. Multiple Perspectives on the Middle East and Southeast Asia in Honor of Fritz Schulze“. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2021.
• „Legalizing a Custom, Helping Women? The New Regulation of Khulʿ in Palestine since 2012“. In Knowledge, Science, and Local Tradition. Multiple Perspectives on the Middle East and Southeast Asia in Honor of Fritz Schulze, hrsg. von Irene Schneider und Holger Warnk, 73–95. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2021.