Dr. Mariam Sheibani is the Associate Academic Director and Head of Research at Cambridge Muslim College. She received her PhD in Islamic Thought from the University of Chicago and postdoctoral training at Harvard Law School. Prior to joining CMC, she taught at The University of Toronto, Harvard Divinity School, and the University of Chicago.
Her research interests are in Islamic intellectual, religious, and social history, with a focus on the theory and practice of Islamic law, ethics, and Sufism. Her first book project, Islamic Legal Philosophy: Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām and the Ethical Turn in Medieval Islamic Law, examines how Muslim jurists from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries addressed salient questions of legal philosophy and ethics, leading them to develop competing legal methodologies and visions of the law. The study centers on a prominent Damascene heir of Khorasani Shāfiʿism, ʿIzz al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Salām, a pivotal figure in the development of Islamic legal philosophy, ethics, and legal maxims (qawāʿid fiqhiyya).
Her other ongoing research projects investigate the construction of late antique Islamic law, judicial practice in medieval Mamluk Cairo, and classical doctrines of Muslim family law. She continues to serve as Research Editor for the Islamic Law Blog based at Harvard Law School. Prior to her doctoral studies, she earned a BA in Public Affairs and Policy Management, an MA in Legal Studies, and a second an MA in Islamic Thought. She has studied with Muslim scholars and conducted research in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, North America, the UK, and West Africa.
For more information on her scholarship and research, please visit https://www.