Researcher Scholar of Islamic Jurisprudence

Profile

Dr Sohail Hanif is Researcher Scholar of Islamic Jurisprudence and currently the Chief Executive of the National Zakat Foundation.

Prior to his current role, he held the position of BA Manager and Lecturer at Cambridge Muslim College. From 2015-17, he was NZF’s Head of Research and Development and has also held the position of Head of Sciences at Qasid Arabic Institute in Amman.

His expertise lies in Islamic law, having studied extensively with traditional scholars. His PhD thesis, which explores Islamic legal epistemology, won the 2019 prize of the British Association for Islamic Studies. He has lectured widely on Islamic law and Qur’anic studies in academic, public and traditional settings.

Education

St Antony’s College, University of Oxford

DPhil in Oriental Studies (Islamic World)

Thesis: A Theory of Early Classical Ḥanafism: Authority, Rationality and Tradition in the Hidāyah of Burhān al-Dīn ‘Alī ibn Abī Bakr al-Marghīnānī (d. 593/1197)

St Antony’s College, University of Oxford

MA Oriental Studies (Awarded “distinction”) Examined in history, law and Sufism

1^st Dissertation: Sixth-Century Ḥanafī Fatāwā Literature and the Consolidation of School Identity

2^nd Dissertation: Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. c. 295/907-8) and the Kasb Debates of the Second and Third Islamic-Centuries

Anwar al-Ulama Institute, Amman, Jordan

Study of classical texts in theology, logic, Islamic law, legal methodology, history of law, hadith methodology and research in hadith sources

Imperial College London

BEng Information Systems Engineering

Publications

• “The Five Categories”. In Routledge Handbook of Islamic Ethics. Edited by Mohamed Ghaly. (forthcoming)
• “Abū Yūsuf’s Ikhtilāf Abī Ḥanīfa wa-Ibn Abī Laylā and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Ḥanafī school,” Islamic Law and Society (2021): 1-33.
• “The Questions of Abū Ḥanīfa,” Diyanet İlmî Dergi, 56 (2020): 1349-1404.
• “Hadith and Fiqh in the Ottoman Period Between Egyptian and Rumelian Ḥanafīs, 9^th-11^th Centuries A.H” Pages 229-85 in Osmanlı’da İlm-i Hadis. Edited by Zekeriya Güler, Bekir Kuzudişli and Mustafa Celil Altuntaş. Istanbul: İSAR Yayınları, 2020.
• “Al-Kāsānī”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3^rd edition. Leiden: Brill, 2020.
• “A Tale of Two Kufans: Abū Yūsuf’s (d. 182/798) Ikhtilāf Abī Ḥanīfa wa-Ibn Abī Laylā and Schacht’s Ancient Schools,” Islamic Law and Society, 25 (2018): 173-211.
• “Al-Ḥadīth al-Mashhūr: A Ḥanafī Reference to Kufan Practice?” in Sohaira Siddiqui (ed.), Locating the Sharia: Legal Fluidity in Theory, History and Practice. Leiden: Brill, 2018.

Forthcoming Academic Projects

• Publication of PhD thesis – contract signed with De Gruyter, final manuscript submission December 2023
• Book Chapter – “Inheritance and Political and Religious Leadership,” Chapter Three in Cambridge Companion to Women and Islam. Edited by Masooda Bano. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Book Chapter – “Commentaries.” Handbook of Islamic Legal Genres. Edited by Hakki Arslan.
• Encyclopaedia Entry – “Qādīkhān”. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3^rd edition.
• Article – “Tricky Ethics: The Problem of the hila for a Discourse on Ethics and Islamic Law.”
• A Classical Commentary on Muslim Creed: A Textbook on Classical Islamic Kalām Based on al-

Taftāzānī’s Sharḥ al-‘Aqā’id al-nasafīyah and Its Commentaries, funded by John Templeton Foundation (under peer review).

 

 

Conference and workshop papers

• “Pluralism in Islamic Law,” Fourth Annual Symposium on Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society, University of Indiana, November, 2020
• “Al-Mashaqqa in Zayn al-Dīn ibn Nujaym’s al-Ashbāh wa-al-naẓāʾir” LAWALISI Text-Based Workshop on al-Qawāʿid al-Fiqhiyya Texts, University of Exeter, December 2019
• “Engaging Politics With Zakat,” Lilly School of Philanthropy, University of Indiana, November 2019
• “Tradition in Modernity: The Islamic Higher Education Experience at Cambridge Muslim College,” Workshop on Islamic Higher Education, Royal Plaza, Singapore, July 2019
• “Working Out the Rules of Tracking Menstrual Periods: A Ḥanafī Story,” Menstruation in Islamic Legal Discourses Project, University of Exeter, July 2019
• “The Hanafi Classification of Legal Rulings,” 6th Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies, University of Nottingham, April 2019
• “Fiqh as Method: Early Classical Ḥanafism in the Classroom,” Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Amsterdam, December 2018
• “The Salafī Epistemology of Early Classical Ḥanafism: From Uṣūl al-Fiqh to Furū‘ al-Fiqh,” 5th Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, April 2018
• “The Bāb al-ʿĀshir from al-Marghīnānī’s al-Hidāya” Religious Taxes in Islamic Law: A Workshop Sponsored by the LAWALISI Project, University of Exeter, March 2018
• “Arguing the Law: Unravelling the Dialectic of al-Marghīnānī’s (d. 593/1196-7) al-Hidāyah,” Annual Meeting of Middle Eastern Studies Association, Boston, November 2016
• “The Battle for Hearts: Reconciling Hearts with Zakat,” 4th Annual Contemporary Fiqhī Issues Workshop, al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham, June 2016
• “Tricks or Ethics? The Problem of the Ḥīlah for a Discourse on Ethics and Islamic Law,” 8th International Conference of the International Society for Islamic Legal Studies, University of Leiden, November 2015
• “Al-Ḥadīth al-Mashhūr: A Ḥanafī Reference to Kufan Practice?” Uncovering the Divine Law: A Workshop on Muslim Legal Theory, University of Exeter, October 2015
• “Sixth-Century Ḥanafī Fatāwā Literature and the Consolidation of School Identity,” 2nd Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies, April 2015
• “The Lasting Influence of an Early Garrison Town: Abū Ḥanīfah and the Fiqh of Kufa,” 11th Annual Islamic Studies Conference, University of North Carolina, February 2014
• “A Tale of Two Kufans: A Study of Abū Yūsuf’s Ikhtilāf Abī Ḥanīfah wa-Ibn Abī Laylā,” Sharia Project Workshop, University of Leiden, November 2013