Authors: Youcef Soufi, Anver Emon
Anver Emon, Professor of Law and History at the UofT, sits down with Youcef Soufi for an indepth discussion on his latest book Jurisdictional Exceptionalism, co-written with Urfan Khaliq.
The 1980 Hague Abduction Convention was intended to create international consensus over how to handle cases in which one parent absconded with their child over an international border, effectively leaving the other parent without clear legal recourse. Dr. Emon sheds light on the historical ideas and assumptions that have made it difficult for the Hague Convention to gain acceptance among Muslim majority countries. On the one hand, Emon explains the Euro-centric elements of the Hague Convention. On the other, he traces historical Islamic legal norms around jurisdiction, which he terms “cadastral jihad”, to highlight its intimate links to notions of empire.
Host: Youcef Soufi
Date recorded: October 14th, 2022
Youcef Soufi is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Islamic Studies, where he is Co-Principal Investigator of the Reading Muslims Project. Trained in classical Islamic Law, Dr. Soufi is currently working on a book project that analyzes Islamophobia and State Surveillance in the post 9/11 period by focusing on the case of three University of Manitoba students (two Canadians and one American) who left their promising lives in Canada in 2007 to join al-Qaeda in the mountains of Northern Pakistan.
Anver Emon is the Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto, where he serves as a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the Department of History. Dr. Emon is also the Canada Research Chair in Islamic Law and History, and one of the Principal Investigators in the Reading Muslims Project. Dr. Emon’s extensive research career focuses on premodern and modern Islamic legal history and theory; premodern modes of governance and adjudication; and the role of Shari’a both inside and outside the Muslim world.
