A blog I read frequently, the Volokh Conspiracy (Eugene Volokh et al’s popular legal blog) has now moved to the Washington Post.

Volokh has serialized his article entitled “Religious Law (Especially Islamic Law) in American Courts, 66 Okla. L. Rev. 431 (2014)” for readers this week, which touches on broad aspects related to the compatibility between Islamic law and American law.

Reading this (generally very good) article, my first thought was that despite the author’s attempt to substantiate all his claims, some of them are still based on preconceived notions of what Shariah is without consideration for context and legal nuance. This to me means the door for more research and writing in the field.

My second thought was there is still a conflation of national laws and cultures with normative Islamic law by both Muslims and non-Muslims.

In the broadest sense possible, I touched on many of these topics in 2010 at a lecture hosted at Texas A&M University. You can watch it here: