EUME
2011/ 2012

Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim

Islamic Legal History and Modernization Discourse

Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim studied in Cairo at al-Azhar University and received a BA in Translation and Linguistics in 1999. He then worked as a journalist for the Middle East Times and other newspapers in Egypt. Ibrahim received his MA in Applied Linguistics from the American University in Cairo (2004) and a PhD in Islamic Studies from Georgetown University, Washington D.C. (2011), focusing on Islamic law, Islamic modernism and the Prophetic tradition literature. With the help of an ARCE archival research fellowship in 2009/10, he wrote his dissertation entitled "School Boundaries and Social Utility in Islamic Law: The Theory and Practice of Talfīq and Tatabbu al-Rukha in Egypt", tracing the pragmatic use of Sunni legal pluralism in 20th-century Egypt to developments that took place in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods in court practice and legal theory. By showing continuity in the discourse of legal theory in the modern and pre-modern eras, Ibrahim challenges the notion that the pragmatic use of legal pluralism had no historical roots in traditional Islamic legal theory. The study also explores the interaction between legal theory and court practice using both Ottoman archival materials and unpublished legal theoretical manuscripts. It examines jurists'' accommodation of court practice and its implications for legal change.

Islamic Legal History and Modernization Discourse

During his EUME fellowship, Ibrahim will work on a book manuscript based on his dissertation project.