CSI Monday Majlis: Michael Cook
Women as Jurists: The Case of Kasani's Wife
Register please on this link: https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/INbq3y5ERAeojbtkOi2aSg
| An Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies seminar | |
|---|---|
| Date | 23 February 2026 |
| Time | 17:00 to 18:30 |
| Place | Online Only |
| Organizer | IAIS |
Event details
Abstract
Michael Cook joined the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton in 1986 after teaching for twenty years at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. His longest book is A history of the Muslim world (Princeton University Press, 2024), and one of his shortest is The Koran: A very short introduction (Oxford University Press, 2000). He retired in 2025.
In his biographical dictionary of Hanafi scholars, Ibn Abi ’l-Wafa’ al-Qurashi (d. 1373) devotes a few pages to women as jurists. One of these women—the only one about whom he has a lot to say—was the wife of the well-known jurist Kasani (d. 1191). Combined with other sources, the information he provides sheds an interesting light on male attitudes to this woman in particular, and on the larger question of the role of women as jurists.
